In his Divine Realm, Loki stirred.

The Half-Aesir deity stared at the distance, His gaze piercing through dimensions, time, and space to focus on a speck of dust most would consider irrelevant. There, a pocket dimension held a tiny "world". Not a planet in the Galilean sense but a world, nonetheless.

There, He saw one of his experiments reach a critical junction point. He gave and gave and gave, now it was time to demand one tiny favor for all the Grace He bestowed upon a particular individual.

Time. For such a malleable concept, He was surely running out of it. If he wanted his master plan to succeed within the margins he was —

The Half-Jotunn shifted his gaze to the portion of his Domain marked as the ingress point for guests. A man wearing an impeccable white business suit, golden curly hair that didn't reach his neck, chiseled jaw and bulging shoulders. The visitors' piercing blue eyes focused on the Norse deity.

"Mister G, what a surprise," the God of Trickery and Chaos grinned. Inwardly, he was cursing the other Divine entity's timing.

"Spare the inane flattery, Loki," Mister G replied. "How is our little wager going? Have I won already?"

Loki snorted, scoffed, and scowled. "The time to decide that is nowhere— I haven't won yet, if that's what you wanted to ask," Loki reined in his expression. Mister G had reached under his thick skin. It wouldn't happen a second time. Perhaps he was too distracted, too eager to reach for the prize.

A stretch of silence passed between the two entities. Stars died and were reborn in the meanwhile. In time-dilated realities, entire civilizations perished and were replaced. On others, no eyes had time to blink.

Loki stood up. Feeling magnanimous, he decided to share information. "It's reaching completion, though. Here, look at these trinkets I have obtained."

Three golden orbs appeared on his upturned palm. One was cracked and riddled with fractures, dull and tarnished. The middle one had a dim glow. And the far one was brimming with potential.

Mister G beamed, showing his impeccable pearly teeth. The mirth was genuine, judged by the squint of his eyes.

"Your grandchild," Loki jested, making the two uninteresting divine cores disappear through pure sleight of hand that would make any Vegas magician die with envy.

"It worked, then. When you advised me to not go after the thieves, I had my doubts."

The Norse snorted. "You doubt everything but your boss, Mister G."

"Former boss." Mister G raised an eyebrow as he schooled the corners of his mouth.

"I never expected you to defect."

"I didn't. I was let go."

"Just like your brother?"

Mister G wasn't so happy now. Loki had paid back the previous embarrassment.

"Anyway, do you want it as compensation for the theft?"

"I'd rather have the original back."

"It's bound to the world. Removing it now would be catastrophic."

Now it was Mister G's time to chuckle. "I created the System Core. You at least suspect it is possible to detach it from the world."

"And now I have confirmation. I must know."

"I'm not against teaching you how, so long you reveal your designs for the System Core." Loki pondered. Absent an answer, Mister G moved onward. "Designs that cannot be fulfilled by its spawn, I see. The information collected by it, then."

"Yes, in a sense. I need Tuisto. You know my end goal. Now you glimpse what the means are."

Information flowed between their minds. Loki nodded and grinned. The visitor focused on the golden orb, making it float into his hand.

"Then the debt is paid. I will no longer go after the thieves."

"Though our wager remains."

Mister G nodded, causing some curls to bob. With nothing more to say or do, He then departed from Loki's domain. The Norse watched the spot as if waiting for him to return. When he didn't, Loki sent His avatar to that tiny speck of dust. It was time to move some events ahead of their schedule.

*

*

Teaching the young [Song Priestess] how to shapeshift her tail and cast the [Land Legs] spell in lieu of the Perk wasn't too hard. In halcyon times, I would've granted her the Perk myself but the sequela from the fight with the Broodmother lingered. I was forcefully divorced of my divine power and it was unwise to splurge the meager scraps in a boon with a satisfactory replacement.

I had to burn the better part of my hour of [Curse Suppression] to teach her the spell. Now I had a bit more than a quarter of hour before I would revert back to being a naive [Book Mimic].

We flew back to the Scorched Continent, fast approaching its shores and going straight toward the mountain range that didn't exist back in Apricot's time. When half the continent was vitrified in a magical pseudo-nuclear explosion of the Second Demon Lord.

Our wayward fairy with delusions of being a super-hero was last seen on that side of the continent and we intended to bring her back to the fold.

Melancholy settled on my heart as I gazed up, at the band of glowing green that shone even under the bright sunlight. I had more than one truant fairy to bring back to the fold but that one was duty-bound to restore the magical balance of this world. Along with my lost Divinity and the closest thing to a living mother I had in more than three dozen lives.

The fleet of silver ships, with warriors strong enough to conquer most nations speeding past underneath us was—

My heart sank. These bastards’ timing was impeccable if Their intentions were to crush my joy underneath his heels. My eyes shifted to the ship's deck where I found Barbara.

"Something wrong, love?" The diminutive halfling asked.

I sighed, "When gods intrude and roam upon the land, it's inevitable. Right now, they gather underneath the waves. Making their presence this obvious mean they are expecting my presence," I explained as I shifted into Haru's form, letting my myriad tails flow freely against the wind. They framed Barbara like streamers, shielding her from the winds.

"Do you expect to fight them?"

"No. Their presence doesn't feel hostile," I replied and tilted my head, my kitsune ears flicking as I saw Kasumi emerge from the stairs. She might've felt it too. Her body language was stiff and her tails fur was raised in alert. She seemed wary.

"I'm not imagining things," the [Saintess] mumbled.

While I replied with what I sensed, Barbara turned to study the newcomer's expression, then looked back at me. "I want to go with you."

Would she be in danger if one of those decrepit Gods decided to attack her? No. Between Kasumi and I, we could protect Barbara. I nodded and cast a spell, the circle appearing instantly beneath our feet. A bubble of Force magic spread and surrounded us, flat at the bottom. I sent a telepathic message for all the ships to slow down to the maximum speed Mithril would allow them to fly without my [Manastorm] to shift their reference frame.

It was slow as molasses but still faster than overland travel by a bit.

The three of us dove into the ocean.

*

*

Loki barged unannounced into the divine realm and grimaced at the sight. For someone claiming the domain of Love, Zacheia surely "embraced" the more basal and carnal aspects of it. A tangled mess of writhing, moaning, and thrusting bodies spread as far as the eye could see, almost smothering the ocean of pillows and cushions underneath them.

He moved toward the center, the celebrants of love moving out of His way on their own, faces plastered with fear of His wrath. To Loki, it was all the same. He didn't reproach free love and what they did with their existences was none of His business. The problem was their mistress and how she was funding the debauchery.

"YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!" Zacheia's voice boomed across the realm like a vengeful Valkyrie. Different from the Daughters of Odin, she had no bite to her bark.

In the next second, Loki was right next to Her naked body, grinning wickedly. "You have outstanding debts, Zacheia," he said. "And I'm here to collect."

"No!" She cringed and scuttled away from him, surfing over the mass of naked sensual bodies. Loki didn't gave chase but the distance.

"I gave you usurpers fair warning and a chance at a new life. The wise among you took it without beating an eyelash. Now, it's time to pay the piper, as the mortals like to say."

"Stay away!"

Stolen novel; please report.

Loki's anger spiked. "I will not be told what to do by a deity so inept she's losing her main domain to Another without any effort on their part. ENOUGH!" His hand morphed into a demonic claw as he thrust it into her ample chest. The blobs of blubber she was so proud of offered no resistance. Zacheia screamed as she vomited golden light.

Loki scratched Her Divine Core but she vanished before He could fully grasp it. The Half-Jotunn clicked His tongue. He released the reins on His anger. Fire roared from His feet and spread in mighty tongues, searing all the supplicants and scouring the realm of all life. Ashes fluttered down. The Norse deity rushed out, bursting the liminal threshold of Zacheia's Divine Domain and bursting it with the ease a toddler pops a soap bubble. It vanished from existence just like the metaphor.

*

*

I held Barbara's hand to reassure her. As the rocky bottom of the ocean came into view, I guided our bubble into a cave.

Four divine presences shone like beacons even through the rock. I recognized all of them. Zacheia, Mehaia, Leviathan, and Kraken. What made me puzzled was that the strongest divine presences came from the two sea demigods who once played with living mermaids like children played with dolls.

We moved through the water-filled cave complex and found the deities and demigods lying on the floor of a small cavern. Due to size constraints in this cavern, Kraken and Leviathan were in a smaller size than their usual gargantuan.

As our bubble reached them, the sight startled me. Zacheia was naked and with a gashing wound on her chest from which red blood with streaks of gold hemorrhaged from. Mehaia was in an even worse condition, her scaled humanoid form covered in wounds, limbs with obvious broken bones.

They weren't healing, which meant the wounds were inflicted by something laced with Divinity. Or by someone with my [God Slayer] perk but it was still unique to me.

Leviathan raised his draconic head while Kraken turned her bloated body to stare at me with her bulging eyes. I could sense their sorrow. These two were more like children than I liked to admit. Even millennia after their stunt, I still loathed to absolve them of their guilt.

"So, the trickster sends His pawn to finish His dirty work," Zacheia sputtered in a feeble act of defiance.

"Matriarch, save Mother," Leviathan pleaded, the ridges on the sides of his face pointing down. I glanced at his sister. Kraken had more pride than him but I could see she shared the sentiment.

"Nobody sent me, Zacheia. I had no business with you while you kept yourself away from mine. I just sensed your presences and came to pay a visit."

Mehaia's Divinity was waning. She was dying. What happened here? Did Loki do this to them? Why? I asked them. Zacheia resisted but eventually gave me her side of the story. She was in her realm, minding her business. She refused to elaborate though I was sure meant rubbing body parts with a dozen of her supplicants at the same time. Loki came and attacked her unprovoked.

I didn't have enough to fill in the blanks but I doubted Loki would just attack out of the blue. Something was amiss but I was already regretting my curiosity.

Glancing at my two companions and making sure they were safe, I went to check on Mehaia. Kasumi could defeat any of the two Goddesses with her [Saintess] bullshit powers alone so I wasn't too worried. Just a little.

"Was it Loki too?" I asked the Sea Goddess as I knelt next to her. Her monster children came closer from behind me, their fear and concern thick enough to congeal the water around us.

Mehaia lacked the strength to speak. She just pointed at the chest wound and mouthed, "my core".

I reached with my supernatural senses. Her Core was shattered, the shards still inside her chest not enough to reform the sphere. It was the first time I saw one of the golden spheres damaged. Previously, I thought they were indestructible and the System regarded Pandora as such.

Perhaps the forces at play here went beyond the System's abilities. The question remained. What prompted Loki to do this? The cruelty was unlike Him. Loki might wield trickery and chaos like mortals breathed air but he wasn't cruel.

What did these two had in common? I fought to keep a snort from escaping.

They were two useless Goddesses, was my conclusion.

Zacheia was once the patron of Arts and Love but she devolved into debauchery and now was the Goddess of... orgies, I guess?

Mehaia did little for the ocean creatures under her domain and failed even to provide sustenance to the oceans during the Age of Eclipse. if not for the crumbs of goodwill her two children's cooperation earned them during my tenure as Princess Arista of Atlantis, I would do the humanitarian act of putting her out of her misery straight away without a shard of remorse.

The decision, however, was not mine to make. With impeccable dramatic timing, Loki walked from a rift in space to take in the scene. On his left hand was a golden orb the size of a basketball, covered in bands of runes and intricate geometric glyphs. A closer inspection told me they were fractal and became smaller as they descended into the orb, soon vanishing even from divine sight.

While it had divinity, it was muted. But I had no doubt that sphere was of the same material as the Divine Cores. I blinked and saw Tuisto to Loki's left. The old man smiled and waved at me.

Tuisto's nature eluded me for a long time. At first, I believed he was a retired Germanic deity who took shelter in a secluded valley near Windemere. But his real identity was the A.I. that administered the System. He was suppressed most of the time Wyxnos controlled the System but now was one part of the Triumvirate who administered it, together with Loki and me.

Which meant...

My eyes locked on the big golden sphere. Was that the System Core? What was it doing here? I glared at Loki, silently demanding an explanation.

*

*

Loki smiled at the kitsune-dwarf half-breed. From her facial and body language, she had figured everything out. It relieved him of an explanation. And if she hadn't, she would eventually. Best keep her on her back foot, to make the offer He had for her more palatable.

It was all coming together and Loki couldn't help but feel excited. He could taste the finish line already. And when he was finally victorious, all of them would...

He clamped down on His excitement. Better not count His chickens before they're hatched.

"End this!" Zacheia demanded.

It was a problem with those hedonistic or narcissistic types. They couldn't savor the drama, they needed their demands met yesterday. Nothing else mattered. While a small part of him wanted to relish on her suffering, she wasn't the target of his vengeance, more akin to a pebble on the side of his road to supremacy.

"As you will," he uttered. His right hand stretched and punched the wound on Her chest, pulling back with his prize.

Zacheia sputtered and perished, without her Core she had no means to sustain her existence in this realm or in any other. Her soul was dragged by the kitsune's powers. What his protege would do with it was none of his business. He didn't care.

Her clergy, what remained of an once great church around the world, all lost their powers and magic. And they would lose even more in the following moments.

Loki's gaze shifted to the other Goddess who managed to evade him. This one was even more pitiful than the former.

"Don't hurt our Mother!" The two sea monster demigods moved to shield the Deity. Loki could slap them into the next parallel dimension but didn't.

"What do you want with a shattered Core?" Haru asked, moving between them and pushing the two sea monsters away.

"Nothing," Loki replied.

"Liar."

"Guilty as charged, your Honor."

Haru tapped her feet. Loki knew she was on a timer. Just a few minutes more, and the curse of the Broodmother would resurface, sealing her mind away. The stupid book mimic persona would come back to the surface. While he could play with this time and make her pressured, Loki too couldn't dawdle too long. His proposal needed her full conscious agreement.

But Loki was a master of working under pressure and in unfavorable conditions. Most of the time, it felt the whole Pantheon and the Universe were against him. Most of the time, they were.

"She's beyond salvation," he cut the silence in the watery tomb. "It is rather cruel of you to let her suffer like that."

The monsters dismayed as they sensed the truth in his statements. Loki could make any lie as believable as the cerulean of the sky but he wasn't uttering falsehoods now. These were just a tool on his arsenal and not some irrational compulsion. Despite his half-brother impression of him, Loki wasn't insane in the least.

*

*

I exchanged a glance with Leviathan and Kraken. The mollusk nodded, though the sea serpent was reluctant. Kraken wrapped a tentacle around Leviathan's neck and pulled her brother closer.

"Let's say our goodbyes," she whispered, full of sorrow.

I gave them some space, swimming over Zacheia's corpse and entering my magical bubble. Barbara was sobbing. Kasumi gently pushed against her back and moved her closer to me. I embraced Barbara and let her bawl, face against my clothes. My free hand reached out and grasped Kasumi's fingers. The Kitsune [Saintess] was a century old and made of tougher stuff than our [Crystallomancer], heart as fragile and delicate as the crystals she wielded.

"Matriarch, please," Kraken pleaded.

I exchanged a glance with Barbara. She nodded and gently parted. I guided Kasumi's hand to hers, glad that no jealousy existed between the two, sisters in a previous life. Then I knelt next to Mehaia.

Life and death, to me, was a revolving door. It led me to embrace it with a different mindset than most of my peers.

"Do it," Mehaia whispered and closed her eyes, going still.

I activated [God Slayer] and plunged an adamantite sword (from my storage) into her chest. Her Divinity departed her body and was channeled to Loki. It was part of our covenant, a side effect of the power that also made me immune to divine attacks. It was useful and beneficial more than not but right now it felt wrong.

I left both body and sword, impaled in the rock of the cavern floor. Then I once more stared at Loki.

"Are you going to kill these two as well?" I asked him.

"Not necessarily. They are born to this world and as close to native deities as one can be. The Urchin has a borrowed Core," he explained.

I raised an eyebrow. Why hadn't I thought about Bit's safety during these divine purges?

"The Guardian Urchin and all you care can be safe as well," he answered as if he could read my thoughts.

"But...?" I asked, wary of the answer.

"I need a special service from you. Off-world." He said as if commenting on the weather.

My heart sank and my blood froze. Off-world meant.... "When?"

"Right now," he said with gravitas in his voice.

Feeling vanished from my fingertips and tails. Time in Yznarian ran at a thousand times that of Midgard. Leaving now meant... I opened my mouth to protest but Loki beat me to it. Only the faintest "uh" escaped my lips.

"I'm turning off the System for this world," Loki declared as he moved the golden sphere in front of him. "You'll need the Core in your next journey. Take it and I'll grant my divine blessing to the mortals you care about in this life."

The implications of that statement had me paralyzed. Without the System...

"I'll even hand the fairy up in space these three cores," he showed three smaller damaged spheres on his right hand. "Pandora, as you call her, can use these to speed up the moon's reconstruction. It will be done and they'll be free of this task when you come back."

The convenience of this escaped me at the time. I was so baffled by his demands, because that's what they were, that I couldn't think straight.

"Without the system everyone will lose their magic, their powers, their Perks, their Skills," Kasumi spoke in my place.

Loki glanced sideways at the mortal and tutted. "Not necessarily. Those who worked to earn their power will keep what they are owed. Those who coasted and over-relied on the System are screwed. On which category do you fit, Ms. [Saintess]?"

Loki's grin was evil and wicked.

Kasumi clamped down her jaw, unwilling to answer.

"That's what I thought. Unfortunately, I need your acquiescence for this to happen," He told me. "Tuisto abstained from this vote."

The AI posing as a Germanic old man nodded. "It is all the same to me. I'll only do my duty as commanded by my creator."

"If you refuse, however, you'll lose my cooperation. Enmity shall replace it."

Fuck. Fuck.

Loki makes no idle threats. Not to us, at least. I glanced at Zacheia's corpse. If this is what he did to people he didn't even care about, what would he do to us if he decided to follow through with his threat.

"Burning a few bridges here," I managed to say as a feeble attempt to fight back.

"I'd burn the Bïfrost if I had to."

He replied in the same threatening tone as before. No, not the same. The truthfulness of this statement weighed more than everything that transpired in this cave so far. I had moments left on my [Curse Suppression].

My eyes met Barbara's. Did she understand what this meant? She spent months, years even, reading the [Lost Sage's Grimoire]. She knew as much about me as I did. More than Netherbane, that's sure. The little book mimic pretended a lot of things to cover for his stupidity.

Loki followed my gaze. "I'll make sure the halfling lives a long and prosper life. No harm will befall her, her realm, or her subjects."

Barbara did a double-take. She hadn't added two and two but now she knew. This was a farewell. Until next life. But... Netherbane's lack of memories allowed book and girl to forge a deeper connection than the girl and the fake Goddess that I was.

How much retaining the memories of my previous lives stunted my enjoyment of them?

Thirty seconds. I was sure Loki could remove this curse if he really wanted. Damn. "You'll maintain your divine protection on all of them even through the future lives!" I demanded.

"I'll do one better. I'll grant you a blank check boon at a future moment when you believe all hope was truly lost."

"Which you already know when."

"The Norns charge a hefty price, but they deliver," he grinned.

I closed my eyes. "I agree."

"So it shall be," Tuisto said in his calm voice.

The System Core thrummed and dimmed. A message rang for all System users. Basically, every sentient being in this god-forsaken world.

> You've lost all levels, Attributes, Skills, and Perks.

Everyone was ultimately demoted to level zero.