Threads of the Soul

Chapter 432 - 432: Polly

Corvus could feel the eyes burning into his back, silently demanding answers to everything that had just happened, but he ignored them. He really didn't want to have to explain everything to them.Surely at least one of them would be smart enough to figure out what was going on, or realise that he wasn't going to divulge all of his secrets to them. Plus, it wouldn't exactly hurt his reputation if they believed that he could kill them with just a touch. He could already feel the trickles of Divine Energy coming from them just from that demonstration.

It wasn't close to real worship, just trickles of fear and apprehension, belief in his power. He wasn't relying on it for his power, but it was a nice little extra to keep him refreshed.

In truth, he was just lucky that Loki had been incapacitated by Woe, taken by surprise and that his soul was relatively weak. Relatively was a key word, as he could already feel it fighting against him. It's foreign power trying to invade his body through the fingers that were holding it.

It was a manageable attack, something he could suppress with some effort, but he was under no impression that it was a trick he would be able to pull off against stronger opponents.

It was a double edged sword. Incredibly effective and efficient, but if the individual he used it on was stronger or had a chance to defend against it, then he could easily be consumed by the more powerful being.

Pacing back and forth, Corvus tossed Loki's soul from hand to hand like it was a baseball as he thought. With every toss, he would pull apart some of the threads making up the soul and rearrange them.

There was no real pattern or purpose to what he was doing with the threads, simply rearranging them and reforging the soul into a blank template, wiping away Loki in the process.

He was still not at the level of his enlightened trance, when Prometheus had guided him in weaving Nixie into existence. The information was in there somewhere. He knew it was there, just lurking in the back of his mind like a word you couldn't quite remember or where you had seen an actor before. You know, the one from the film with... the stuff and the explosions... No not that one, the other one.

Whenever he tried to grasp it, it would just slip away from him. Yet even still, perhaps as his mind advanced with his body and became more able to handle the information, it slowly leaked out. This absent minded wiping was the result of that limited information. Just enough to make a blank slate, but not enough to make use of it.

As he paced and wove, Corvus thought about the oddity of this impostor. Mainly, why he even bothered, and why the demon maid had sent them here. Indeed, this world was not a perfectly crafted ruse of his creation.

Instead this world was pre-programmed into the bracer when he was given it. He had noticed that it was not earth, as he had remembered the earth co-ordinates from the last time, so he had brought them here out of curiosity and simply taken hold of the opportunity as it presented himself.

But the initial purpose of it was still a mystery to him. His first thought was that this was a buffer world. A trick destination to trick the trickster, or at the very least lose anyone that was following them.

Like turning off your headlights and parking in dark alley to lose the cops that are chasing you, before making your way to your hideout.

However that had some issues. Firstly, they knew where their hideout was. Earth, that is. The Old Gods had some contact with his home-world in the past, simply by the fact that his world knew of their existence.

Not to mention the french leader had some kind of device that was clearly meant to contact them, judging by the demon maids reaction to it. Yet Loki still hid himself amongst their ranks with clear intent to follow them home... So why?

It was a question that was bugging him. Other answers such as controlling the leaders from the shadows, being a decieving voice whispering in their ear, seemed possible but it was also seemed far fetched. At that point why not just take over the place of the leader themselves?

No, he specifically chose a sub-ordinate because they are someone that can disappear without much scrunity or notice. Corvus knew that himself from his experience as Seth compared to his constant role in the spotlight now.

His mind kept coming back to his initial thought as he wove the soul, until the idea finally clicked into place. He whipped his head around, staring at the open air where they had entered this world with eyes open in revelation.

'Of course! The door closed behind. They already know Prometheus got stuck there... they don't want the same to happen to them.'

They had access to space shattering technology, in one way or another, and a navigation system to traverse the infinite terminals, such as the meadow and the hotel corridor. But that took time, sometimes even months within a space that suffered from time dilation. Invaders using random breaches to random locations might not care, such as the ones involved with the Shattering, they were just going over for chaos and ransacking.

But someone going with a purpose and who wished to return would, especially an egotistical God who would think themselves above such petty things as 'walking to your destination'.

Between the effort and the chance of getting stuck for god knows how long, it wasn't worth it to them. What they needed was a stable door. One they could always locate and keep open.

They needed Prometheus' Heaven's Gate, or more likely, they needed the key to access it. A code that would allow them to link up their gates to the one already sitting on earth.

It would give them the perfect location for an invasion force to pour through, and all without risk of getting stuck or having to spend time in the infinite terminal spaces.

In fact, it was probably likely that the Shattering had been part of their initial efforts. They had probably sent over their forces, mixed with the normal invaders, to find the Heaven's Gate and establish their presence on Earth.

That must have been how the French got in contact with them in the first place, along with anyone else who had fallen to the side of the traitor gods.

They just never accounted for the fact that someone would be able to counter the Shattering. To think that three individuals who, when combined together, could become the perfect counter to their plan would all be born in the same country as the thing they were searching for, and survive long enough to find each other. It was three, because Corvus was under no delusion that he would have anywhere near as much power and progress as he did if it wasn't for his old teacher.

He was only sad that he never got to spend time with the old man and that he never got to see what his lessons would amount to. The two Julius' would probably get along so well.

Still, It was amazing. Prometheus had once likened their existence to a Gacha machine, the old gods and their masters turning countless civilisations into living experiments to find the best genetic mutations to give themselves.

It was hard to say if such an insane coincidence would be classed as an SSS tier roll, or the worst one possible. Perhaps it was just a matter of perspective.

It would only be a matter of time before the unsuccessful infiltration of the trickster god was detected by his companions. How much time though, that was something Corvus did not know.

Which was the bad thing about being on this planet. He had already put in the new co-ordinates for home into the bracer, but they would need to wait for a new spacial weakness to appear and then find it before they could use it to get home.

On the bright side, this planet offered him a perfect opportunity to prepare for the impending battle. After all, that Valkyrie was not the only one who could create her own inexhaustible army.

With a smirk on his face, Corvus cast his eyes down at the soul that rested in his palm. He poured his energy into it, mixing in the Divine Energy he had gained from the other leaders fear, to help boost his natural powers.

His hand reformed, and after a few seconds, a pale blue crystal ball started to form in his palm.

***

A humanoid golem made of strange stone blinked softly as it sat up. It looked around its environment with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. The grass was blue, trees were stone and multiple suns hung in the sky. Was that normal? Well it was all it had seen, so it must be.

Multiple footprints pushed down the perfectly normal grass, their trail leading off into the distance. No matter how much it looked around, it could not find those who had left the footprints.

The only thing it could see was the body of a blue skinned man with golden horns. But he did not seem to be doing much walking. Perhaps he was foliage, like the grass. They were the same colour after all.

A Raven was perched on its leg, looking up at the golem expectantly. The Raven let out a soft caw, fluttering its feathers impatiently. The Golem tilted its head, listening to the Raven, before nodding softly.

"Yes, I understand."

It spoke with a gentle voice, although it did not know how it spoke. It simply did.

The Raven hopped onto the Golem's shoulder as it rose to its feet. It strode over to a nearby tree, made of the same stone as it, and began to punch. The Raven had told it all it needed to know at this moment.

It was born to build, to make more like itself. To build an army. For who, it did not yet know. The only other thing, other than its purpose, was its name.

A name given to it by its father, who had gifted it this purpose. A name based off of the singular blue stone embedded into its face and acted as its eye. A singular eye that stared at this wonderful new world with childish innocence and wonder.

Its name was Polly.