Theo considered the contract before him. When he was reaching for the card, without even being able to control his own body, he understood that this was the end for him. One did not interact with artifacts of that power and inclination and walk away unscathed. At the moment of contact, Theo's only thoughts were of Camden and literally nothing else, which was a bit sad if one dwelled on it, which is why Theo preferred not to. This deal, however, would let him out unscathed. It was a prospect that Theo hadn't given serious thought to, and the more he considered it, the more he realized that he had no better options. Theo, without a word, sent a thought and accepted the contract.
Thank You. In the last couple of minutes, I have considered where to begin. I realized that for a complete narrative, we need to begin at the beginning. I was born Zalgen of Ant'ren, a city of demons, now lost to time, in the year 668. The calendar you use, in which the year sits at 453, is not the same as the one used then. This year, in that calendar, would be 1141. That is the measure of time since the twins took control of the heavens.
The twins were old gods, made at the same time as the sun and moon, their celestial bodies. They never rose to prevalence until very old and very dangerous wars came to a close, leaving the heavens in disarray, ruled by weak gods clinging onto the limited power that remained after all the deaths. The twins came in and massacred the gods before committing an act as despicable as it was purportedly pragmatic. The twins feasted on the bodies of the gods they had slain, eating the divine power within. They ate and gorged, turning up the graves of old gods, until the twins became more powerful than any before them. By the time they were done, the sun and the moon had nearly every scrap of divine power and were entirely content to rest on their laurels.
The moon retreated to the heavenly body that bore their name, while the sun lorded over Urom, constructing a palace so massive and grand that the humans and demons below muttered and rumored that within was a staircase, by which anyone could climb all the way to heaven, using a million steps, and ascend to godhood. It was in the middle of a popular trade route between the human and demon kingdoms, but none ever dared to land there, except for a few boat-fulls of sycophants that burned to a crisp the moment their prows struck land.
Everything was well until the wars of 439, a few skirmishes between neighboring human kingdoms over the borders, and a battle of a few thousand men. One of the commanders decided to attack under the full moon to maintain the surprise of a night ambush while allowing his men's vision to remain acceptable, so no mistakes occurred. We only know this much because it was part of a notebook that was kept by the general at his camp, but left there, and forgotten. Witnesses, of which there were millions, report seeing a beam of light come down from the moon. By collecting witness reports, they were able to get its approximate location and, upon investigation, found the enormous crater left behind by the two armies. The beam burned away any remains. This was the end of the quiet era and the beginning of the end. The effects of eating god-flesh, as we now know, are a measurable and disturbing change to personality and mental facilities, which, if allowed to fester, will emphasize the worst traits of a person. The moon became bloodthirsty, to the point of beginning and ending wars on a whim, and the sun became an egomaniac, harvesting "servants" from throughout the land and killing them for perceived slights. This continued on for an incredible amount of time, as the populations of both humans and demons dwindled due to constant conflict and hundreds of thousands of kidnappings to fill the Golden Palace time and again.
At this point, Zalgen paused, and Theo reeled. Hearing the mention that Zalgen was a demon was startling to Theo. The nuns at the orphanages always spoke of the evils of the demons and their gods and how they hungered for the blood of humans, to the point where Theo assumed that anything that evil lived in the realm of stories and legends. He was clearly mistaken in that regard; however, the nuns appeared to be mistaken as well, because except for the way in which Theo's body was possessed, Zalgen was nothing but cordial. Theo didn't know if some mental magic was in play, making him believe certain things about the nature of Zalgen were true, but it seemed like an awful lot of work. If Zalgen had the power to fake a soul oath, he had the power to manipulate Theo into doing literally anything. At this point, Theo decided to make a leap. He made the assumption that the oath and the contract were both real. If Theo held deeper beliefs about the gods, or demons, or the nature of history, perhaps he would simply assume the evil Zalgen was meant to purport, but as it stood, Theo believed the information Zalgen gave.
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The centuries of death and destruction lasted until the year 701, when the 18 overthrew the twins, but quite a few nearly impossible things happened to allow this. In the year 682, despite my youth, I was revered continentwide as one of the greatest heroes of all time. There were tales of my deeds, sung by bards; how I stopped a dungeon break with my bare hands; and nothing more; how I slew four basilisks with a single swing of my sword; how I ended a line of murderous dragons, terrorizing hundreds of mountain villages scattered throughout the north of the continent. While my deeds were the downfall of those monsters, rather than attempt to brute force the issue, as the stories may suggest, I usually found some weakness that I could exploit.
Throughout my journeys, I became acquainted with the other 8 most famous adventurers in my lands, each powerful in their own right, and when a problem became big enough, we would all face it together. Typically, the organizer was me, so I was seen by most as the leader of the group, despite each of us being on almost even footing when it comes to raw strength. When the moon summoned eight pillars of moonlight, all closing on the army I controlled, I managed to cohesively split the army into eight and regroup them before splitting them into groups to spread out to towns and cities all over the province I was currently lending my battle expertise to. After this, there were some who called me Saint Zalgen, Godbester, despite my protests, but the little shrines made in people's houses all across the province started to have real, tangible impacts. Before the system, cards had to be either carried manually or stored within one's soul in a pocket formed by an experienced spatial mage. Beasts were born with gemstones in their chests that seemed to mimic the soul, with the exception. They could be smashed open, to reveal the cards within.
"What happened to the stones?" Theo asked, almost a shrill cry, curiosity getting the better of his will to not interrupt.
They remain, Zalgen says, with some element of mystery, and of humor, before continuing. Anyway, that's unimportant to this narrative. What is important is the fact that in my soul, after 9 months of this worship, there was a fragment of a divine card. That meant two things to me. The first was that if the twins killed and ate every god, their raw might may be insane, but their cards would be lackluster due to the fact that the cards, locked within the souls of gods, died with them. Besides a few sycophants, the twins had very few actual worshipers, which meant that they received next to no divine card fragments. They could be beat! Do you know the insanity of that? If I amassed enough worshipers, I could become as powerful, or even more so, than them. I needed to conduct tests. I took a census and found that the number of people worshiping me was 905000. A bit of math later, and I found that the average person gave me 0.00000000050455 card shards per hour. Multiply that by the population of 110 million people, divide by 2 to account for those who wouldn't worship, and one come up with a result of 10 card shards per year. I had figured this all out by the year 692, in the 9th month, a month after the shard appeared
To quantify that, only 4 gods that I knew of have ever broken the barrier of 10 cards. I requested an emissary from the human continent, and the nine most powerful humans, me, and the eight other demons arrived at two ships, tied together and anchored, far away from the trade routes but still halfway between our continents. May I show you?
"Sure"