It shouldn’t have been possible. It shouldn’t have happened. One agonizing second after another passed, but even using Ophiuchan Simulation and what he could perceive of the mysterious poison, he couldn’t determine how they’d done it.

It’s not that the Gate of Death is difficult to open, thought Sorin. Instead, it’s difficult to survive. Opening the gate floods your body with so much death mana specifically tuned to kill you that very few people are able to pull through.

Point in fact, the Gate of Death was the simplest of the four Sanctification Gates to open. So simple, in fact, that it couldn’t be partially opened to limit the flood of death mana, which where most of the research was focused on.

As for treating a patient flooded with so much death mana… Even the Kepler Clan’s Divine Medical Codex was helpless. The problem lay less with the quantity of life mana one could receive and more with the clash between life and death that would then occur within a patient’s body.

It was a medical problem that rigorous calculations and three generations of experiments had proven to be impossible to solve with standard medical theory.

Yet here it was—a tincture said to increase the odds of survival from opening the Gate of Death by a factor of 5.

On paper, this was a wonderful thing, one that Sorin would have been in full favor of. But now that he had access to Strife, he could better determine the consequences of the tincture.

The tincture was, in fact, a poison pill that humanity might never recover from.

The price had already climbed to 2,000 divine crystals with no end in sight. That made sense to Sorin; the sole requirement for qualifying as a major clan was possessing a living demigod to hold down the fort.

A clan with a demigod would easily be able to accrue merit by patrolling the realm and defending it against the minions of the seven evils. This merit would translate to more divine crystals and territory in the Infinite Dungeon, making it easier for the clan to nurture additional powerhouses.

That alone was enough to provoke a civil war, but when you considered clans like the Kepler Clan and the Hargrave Clan with demigods at the end of their lifespans, things got even more complicated. If it took sacrificing twenty individuals to foster a replacement, they could only hope to get lucky, but if it only took four… well, that was completely different.

The mere introduction of the tincture at a black market auction was causing reverberations in Olympia’s web of fate. Mere undercurrents in humanity’s governing city were rapidly becoming viable flash points in the city’s destiny.

And once again, it was the Kepler Clan who made it all possible.

The Styx Auction House may have cleared the vial’s karma, but they can only do so much to prevent me from prying into an item so deeply tied with the Kepler Clan.

Sorin quickly identified the individuals who knew of the vial. The Grand Elder was in on it, as was Reeves Mockingjay Kepler and his son Fineas Mockingjay Kepler. Unsurprisingly, Sorin could not detect a whiff of Adrian Sovinger Kepler who’d likely brought it to the Styx Auction House.

My late parents are also connected to the tincture. Both through the sweat and tears they spent deterring the Elder Council from pursuing it and through blood. Their deaths are deeply related to the production of this tincture.

That said, he could also tell that the turning point for the tincture wasn’t due to the Kepler Clan. There were a few ties to Gabriella, but minimal involvement on her part.

The largest thread is difficult to miss. Someone has been manipulating things behind the scenes. Against his better judgement, he followed that ominous thread back to its source.

Death was what he felt. He saw nothing, but felt it encroach on his position.

It tried to grip him through their karmic connection, so Sorin severed it with Nemesis. “Gareth. Lawrence. Lorimer. You all need to run.

“Now!”

“Sorin, what’s going—” started Gareth, but Sorin used Dance of the Tail Biter to exit the building before he could finish. He then used it a second time to cross half the Undercity and arrive at one of its many exits.

But when Sorin tried stepping through the thin boundary separating the Undercity from the upper world, a solid barrier composed entirely of souls stopped him in place.

“What have we here,” came a familiar voice. A man in a black suit stepped out from the boundary wielding a black bident. “Ah, just the man I weas thinking about,” said Ratten Hyde. “Sorin Abberjay Kepler, the man who foiled my plans to acquire a divine corpse. What gall you have, waltzing right into my territory.”

Sorin instincts screamed that he was no match for the man. “I have no quarrel with you, Ratten,” said Sorin, summoning a poisonous miasma to shield him from Ratten’s massive cloud of death-aligned mana.

“Unfortunately for you, quarrels can be unilateral,” said Ratten, pointing the Bident of the Underworld at Sorin. “Now a test, to see if you’re even worth my time. Soul Relegation.”

The air twisted and pulled as a force grasped Sorin’s spirit and attempted to pull it out. Thankfully, his soul had been strengthened by the Gate of Expanse and his sanctification had increased to 60%. The attractive force was nullified with little effort.

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“Interesting,” said Ratten as he took a closer look at Sorin. “Yes, I thought there was something different about you. You’re not just infected with Hope; you’re accommodating a hodge podge of mixed corruption.

“Doesn’t Hope know better than to try chasing that useless dream? How many times will he attempt the impossible? Corruption, by its nature, can never be perfected, just like true divinity can never be ameliorated.”

“It seems you know a lot more than you let on in public,” said Sorin. “And judging by countless chains locking down your body and spirit, you’re much more of a threat than people give you credit for.”

Ratten gave Sorin a pitying look. “You’re deflecting because you don’t want to face the truth, Silenos Avjerinos Asclepius.

“But don’t take my word for it. Discover the truth firsthand.” He raised the Underworld Bident in the air and called out an incantation.

“Descend, Pale Rider, and Unleash the River!”

“Release the waters were only Gods May Tread!”

A familiar projection of the river Styx gushed out from the boundary protecting the Undercity and smashed into Sorin like the hand of a true deity.

It took three seconds for the river to send Sorin across half the Undercity, but to Sorin, those three seconds felt like three long years. Every day that passed brought renewal and decay. Renewal from his sanctified flesh, and decay from the remains of his mortal self.

By the time he arrived at his destination, 40% of his body had rotted away. Only the divine framework connecting his muscles and tendons to his bones and blood remained.

A similar feeling invaded his soul. Forty percent of his spirit vanished over the course of three agonizing seconds.

“Only those with sufficiently sanctified bodies and souls can survive the River Styx,” said Ratten casually. “Opening the Gate of Expanse isn’t enough. Only those who have achieved the level of a demigod in both body and spirit are able to last more than a single second when exposed to the projection of the pale river.

Ratten slammed his bident down onto an invisible platform and provoked the river once more. It wrapped around Sorin, impeding his movements and infusing him with death and time but otherwise didn’t harm him.

Only then did he see the truth that Ratten was trying to drive home: While Sorin’s divinity was content to exist within the river, the corruption hiding in his poisons was rebelling and breaking his body down.

In other words, Sorin’s tarnished divinity wasn’t as durable as he thought. It was, by its very nature, imperfect.

“So what if I can never be immortal,” said Sorin. “I’m hardly helpless against you, Ratten.” He summoned Nemesis in spear form and advanced on chained god. For there were chains. He could see them now. Compared to these restrictions, Sorin’s own restrictions were playthings that could casually be broken.

“Dance of the Ouroboros. Viper’s Strike.” Sorin appeared beside Ratten with zero delay and pierced with his spear. Ratten casually dodged, but Sorin pressed the attack. He was everywhere at once, an ever-present poison that soon managed to enter Ratten’s bloodstream and began eating away at his abnormally tough flesh.

Ratten laughed as he ripped away one of his sleeves to reveal a shallow cut in his pale skin. His blood was gold and laced with death. Even Sorin’s red devourer had difficulty enduring the cage that was Ratten’s body.

“All things die. Even poison,” said Ratten. A pulse of death disintegrated the Red-Eyed Devourer in his body, freeing up his mana and relieving his paralysis.

Nemesis tingled in warning as Ratten attacked with a single fist.

Should I retreat? Can I face this head on? Exactly how much have I grown?

Sorin made a snap decision and answered Ratten’s fist with a gauntleted fist of his own. Poison met death, and for a moment, neither side won out.

“Impressive,” said Ratten. “In fact, I’d say you’re the most impressive Flesh-Sanctification cultivator I’ve ever faced. And don’t forget, I’m not just counting the past four hundred years—I’m counting the vast millennia that make up the continuum of my life.

“Unfortunately… it’s insufficient. “Death surged from the river and into Ratten’s fist as he pushed Sorin to the very back of the Undercity’s cavern, just shy of the Gate of the Underworld.

Surprisingly, the attack did nothing to Sorin physical. Instead, it anchored strange energies in his body that began rotting it form the inside out.

The tissues in Sorin’s arm began to die, regardless of how much divinity was imbued. He mobilized Red Devourer to eliminate the responsible flesh but unable to eliminate three ‘seeds’ that had taken root.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. If this part of his body couldn’t fight off an infection, he didn’t need it. “Excise.” Three needles pierced Sorin’s hand and eliminated the offending party. The price he paid for this removal was a one percent reduction in his Flesh-Sanctification cultivation and an overall reduction in the effectiveness of his poison.

“I refuse to believe you can do this often,” said Sorin.

Ratten was sweating, but a confident grin remained on his face. “I could do this all day, Sorin. Worse comes to worse, I’ll simply sacrifice this body and take over another.”

Despite his clear fatigue, Ratten lashed out with his bident. Sorin dodged a wave of nether energy8 and mobilized a cloud of toxins aiming to attack Ratten’s eyes and lungs.

Such a crude attack could only buy a fraction of a second—Sorin used that opening to spray out needles laced with all six forms of corruption inside his body. This time, Ratten chose to defend, making it clear that corruption was one of his few weaknesses.

“Corruption may be imperfect,” Sorin said to Ratten. “But against gods, no weapon is more potent.

“The veneer of invincibility you’ve painted yourself with is just that—a thin skin covering inferior materials.”

“This thin skin has more divinity packed inside it than you have in your entire body,” hissed Ratten. “You think I care about such little bits of corruption? Have it! I won’t even bother defending!”

True to his word, Ratten dropped his defences and advanced on Sorin. Sorin retreated while attempting multiple poison combinations but was unable to find anything than Red-Eyed Devourer and pure corruption.

Fine. If I can’t fight him directly, I’ll need to escape.

All he needed was a small opening. A distraction that would allow Sorin to slip through the bubble keeping him inside the Undercity.

Gareth, Lawrence, and Lorimer had just managed to exit the city. This meant there likely wasn’t anyone Sorin deeply cared about in the city, safe perhaps Fenrig.

“Fine,” said Sorin. “You’re stronger than me. I admit that.”

“Very good,” said Ratten. “Then let’s come to an arrangement. Serve me, and all will be forgiven.”

“I think you’re mistaken about something,” said Sorin, brandishing his spear. “I can’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything to you.” He aimed his spear at the Undercity. “This place is an eyesore. I think I’ll start with that and see if it affects the barrier.”

Ratten’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare. If you so much as kill a single person in the Undercity, your entire clan will suffer.”

Sorin raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a threat? You’re in on the Death Tincture, Ratten. I’ve confirmed it. That means you should know more than anyone else what happened to my parents and why.”

Ratten laughed. “You think it’s me that killed those uncooperative losers? How naïve of you, Sorin.”

“The Ratten Clan seldom needs to act directly to kill someone they don’t like,” said Sorin with a shrug. “That’s the benefit of reputation. Still, I wonder…

“By the time I’m done here, will I have such a stellar reputation?”

“If you dare, I’ll be sure to make the lives of all your friends a living hell,” threatened Ratten.

Sorin shrugged. “Then I’d better make sure I get my pound of flesh before I escape.” He held out his hand and summoned five points of mixed corruption and poison. “Let’s see how your precious auction hall like my Five Poison Apocalypse.”