Barca, as a god's Familia member who had been engraved with Falna, when he died, Thanatos, the God bound to the contract, sensed the vanishing of a reaction that had certainly existed a moment before.
Perhaps it was fate, the destined path after death, for a nameless, bottom-rank soldier.
But right now, Thanatos had a vague intuition: the soul that had just faded… belonged to that man possessed by confusion and stubbornness.
In Thanatos's eyes, aside from one impossible obsession, that man had nothing, no self, no desires.
It was pitiful, absurd, laughable… and yet, noble.
A child who, among this sorrow-soaked Familia, was especially unique, someone who deeply intrigued Thanatos.
Long ago, no one knew how many years, Thanatos descended from the Tenkai after sealing away some of his own divine power for reasons unknown.
Following his own divine will, he took on the title of "Evil God," aligned with the Evilus, and in this City Orario, he stirred up one so-called incidents after another.
Until fifteen years ago, out of boredom, he happened to find something that caught his interest.When he wandered into this Knossos, that man named Barca was already there, continuing a bloodline carrying a "obsession,".
The first time the god of death saw this man in the depths, Thanatos instinctively realized, his soul was childlike: pure and singular, yet as merciless and cruel as a child.
It was more twisted than any "soul" Thanatos had ever witnessed.
The obsession etched into his bloodline relentlessly pushed him down this warped path.
He didn't even glance at Thanatos. Perhaps, precisely because of that, Thanatos grew fond of Barca.
For the gods, whether beautiful or twisted, anything rare delighted them like a child receiving a new toy.
So, saying that Thanatos granted Falna to Barca and made him part of his Familia merely to observe and entertain himself… would not be wrong.
Yet, as the god of death, Thanatos also loved Barca according to his own philosophy.
Even if, in the eyes of other upright gods, this death god was inherently abnormal, twisted inside and out, prickly and perverse.
Now, the child who delighted him had lost his life.
Carrying only the bare minimum of sorrow, Thanatos let his thoughts drift over and into the sky above the surface.
...
Their final trump card had already been crushed in its infancy by the Adventurers. Even the calculations of the cunning, scheming Thanatos could see clearly… they had reached a dead end.
"…I thought this operation would give me the Loki Familia as a bonus prize, yet in the end, I was the biggest fool of all. To think I actually let an ally play me."
Thanatos muttered under his breath, a rare self-mocking expression appearing on his face.
In the "Evilus Hideout," which had quickly grown quiet and empty, only the god remained.
To repel the invaders, all members of the Evilus had been sent out, and the defenses had long since lost their substance.
After seeing the situation clearly, anyone with reason, aside from the fanatical chaos believers whose heads were filled with pure zeal, should have understood that they stood no chance.
Perhaps to let Thanatos, escape, to fulfill their vague, distant wish, they sacrificed their lives to buy time for the god of death.
Of course, besides the wish they sought to fulfill, their contract with Thanatos included another condition:
"The destruction of the Labyrinth City."
Even now, they believed that as long as Thanatos escaped and sought another opportunity, their wish would someday come true.
Perhaps that was why the believers fought with such desperate devotion.
"Heh… my lovely believers, indeed… Ten years, twenty, fifty, a hundred, it's just a blink of an eye for the gods. But… to start all this again down here in the lower world? Even aside from those annoying gods, I wouldn't be able to stand it."
"Time may pass in an instant, but the steps required… are truly, truly, truly troublesome. To do it all over again… really would be…"
Thinking of that, Thanatos shook his head with a sigh.
After a moment, silence returned to the space, until Thanatos let out a long sigh.
His violet eyes opened, staring toward the far end of the chamber, then he moved, rising from the stone throne.
As he expected, the footsteps of adventurers drew closer, approaching from afar, steadily.
Even with doom closing in, the god remained calm, without the slightest sign of panic.
He cast a deep glance toward the direction of the footsteps, then walked toward the opposite passage, heading into the darkness.
The tunnel was short. Soon, he arrived at a hidden place even deeper.
By the dim glow of magic stone lamps and torches, he saw a massive stone-cut hall lined with countless pillars.
From the emblem carved into the walls, a heart of iron and bronze, framed by black wings shaped like a death god's scythe, it was clear this was another base of the Thanatos Familia, a place with no sanctuary on the surface world.
In the dim center, where neither lamp nor torchlight reached, the only illumination came from candles set atop the pillars.
And at the deepest point stood a massive altar.
Before the altar, at the bottom of the steps,
Just as Thanatos expected, a ghost-like figure stood silently there. If one didn't look carefully, one might not notice its presence at all.
The figure remained where it was, silently staring up at the tattered banner of the Thanatos Familia.
"…Ain."
"..."
Their eyes met.
It was the familiar mask known to Fron and others.
Within the Evilus and among the monsters, they were called Ain. Even to their allies, they were a being shrouded in mystery, like a mist no one could pierce.