FATE!

West-central of the Truden continent

Holy city of Saiya - Lumen lands

Cathedral of Truth

In an office at the top of the cathedral. A young priest respectfully made a report towards an old man with a kind countenance.

He was garbed in a white and gold well-designed religious attire. The golden embroidery on his robe glistened magnificently, depicting a golden tree with a few small words underneath. With one glance one could tell that he held great authority.

"Your Grace, Hayday. In the past seven days our informants have reported back several strange events. Clouds aflame in the far east, multiple earthquakes at the Faro mountains.

The Demans in the Deso continent have been reported to have begun suspicious movements, withdrawing most of their armies back to their capital.

Southeast from here at the willow forest, over 10,000 thousand monsters of different species were reported to have mysteriously died, the strongest amongst them being tier 3... We believe their deaths to have been caused by a plagued of some kind... Investigations are still ongoing.

The black dragon Jeernatr went on a rampage destroying three northern kingdoms in the process namely: Gaturr, Somer and Lironah has been reported completely ruined and their royal families either dead or missing." The priest ended his report.

With an understanding expression Hayday asked. "How has the imperial families responded?"

"Zun, Agert and Throst have dispatched a number of elites from their intelligence agencies to investigate the events and are marshaling their troops to respond to any sudden changes. The garrisons at the eastern wall have also been strengthened."

Hayday tapped on the table in thought and asked. "Did our allies take any measures?"

"Yes, Your Grace. War temple is currently dealing with Opus Mardi. While Code Abbey has sent a contingent of high level sorcerers from the headquarters of magic, led by the archmage Carnibar, to push back and divert the attention of the dragon." The priest reported calmly and clearly.

The Cardinal Hayday nodded. "Has the Pope come out of his chamber?"

"No, Your Grace."

'Hmm. The Pope has been very quiet lately. I hope he's alright...' He pondered.

"What about the other Cardinals?"

"They have responded by following the imperial families lead, assisting them as much as necessary."

"...Then we will do the same. Let the Saint Panna handle this in my stead. You may leave."

"Yes, Your Grace!" The priest gave a gentle bow before leaving to fulfill his duties.

The Cardinal signed after he left. He took a feathered pen and wrote a letter, before sealing it with his seal. Then handed it to his aide standing at his side. "Get me manuscript 272 of the archives of forbidden documents."

The aide's eyes twitched a little before hurrying out. The Cardinal helped himself to a glass of water as he waited. A few minutes later the aide returned with an old book, carefully placing it before the Cardinal.

Hayday opened the book like he was very familiar with the contents within and quickly found what he was looking for.

————

Oh Anvil! How blessed are you that you should be chosen by the gods to raise their disciples, how blessed are you for out of you shall rise numerous heroes. But I say unto you cry! For your demise is near! For a day comet when the skies shall be set ablaze, the grassy plains shall turn to sheets of ice, millions shall be sickened to death, mountains shall be obliterated by lightning, rivers of water shall become rivers of blood these and many more are the signs of the apotheosis of the sons and daughters of Chaos... But this shall not be thy demise.

For strangers of limitless potential shall walk these lands and old strangers shall be awakened from their slumber. Your body shall become the battlefield of the servants of the gods and great destruction shall they wrought upon you... But this shall not be thy demise.

Hear! For this is thy demise, the day when the sky darkens and out of Tiliman 'The realm of the gods', out of the tower of G...

Last words of the great Fogman — Foss Uvendi

————

Hayday couldn't help signing as he covered his face. "...I need to retire."

   ***

*poke poke.

Riot opened his eyes, he looked at the tall trees and bright sky that encompassed him. 'Quite a nice view.' He thought.

*poke.

He felt something touching his cheek and turned his head. What he saw next stopped his heart. A little white lion cub as small as his palm sat staring back at him.

He smiled slowly."Hello cutie. Oh, what an adorable ball of fur you are!" He said as he extended an arm to pet it.

Chomp!

"Hehe, your little jaws ain't doing nothing to these steel cladded fingers of mine little kitty." He hugged and waved the lion cub around and around, rolling.

Wait! If there's a lion cub then the mother must be nearby.

He jumped on his feet and scanned the place but sensed nothing.

Sign.

"Eh? What was that?!" Riot heard something signing and looked at the cub in his hands. He noticed the cub looking back at him squarely.

Is that an expression of annoyance?

"Are you done now? If so, then put me down." The cub's kid-like voice sounded out.

'It spoke!' Riot's eyes widened. Slowly he dropped the cub.

Clearing it's throat the cub asked. "How are your wounds?"

"...My wounds? Hm. Yes, i was dying wasn't i? Well, i feel good as new. I'm quite hungry and a bit tired though." Riot stretched a bit.

He had spoken to all kinds of aliens in his past life, so he quickly got over the fact that a lion cub was speaking to him. Moreover, he was now in a magical world who knew what to expect.

The cub looked relieved. "You where lucky that your body transformed enough for me to at least heal you."

"You know me?" Riot was surprised.

"Of course! I know everything about you. I brought your soul into this world after all, so how can i not know you." It stated. "By the way you can call me Cain."

Riot looked down a bit confused. "...Okay. Cain, if you brought me here, why didn't you show yourself from the start?"

Cain sat down before saying. "It was a fierce challenge bringing you here. Mysterious and divine forces tried to restrain me. But i fought my way through. On finally getting here, i was so weak the most i could do was send your soul to this body and imbued a bit of my life energy into you. So that you could at least transform a bit as an emergency measure, in case anything bad happened to you while i was resting, i could heal you. And guess what? You almost died! Nearly wasting all my efforts!" He hit the ground with his little paw, his annoyance was clearly shown. Though, it only made him look cuter.

Riot raised his eye lids. "I see... So you were exhausted because it caused you a lot of energy to bring me here." Nodding. "Well then. What exactly are you and why did you bring me here?"

Cain pondered a little then said. "It's a long story. But i'll try to at least make it brief... You must have heard of Tiliman, right? The land of the gods." Cain pointed upwards.

"Yes, i have. It's a realm where the gods dwelled and from which they ruled."

He nodded. "Hm, you're right. Long ago, i and my brethren ruled over Tiliman and were the original and first gods. Then everything changed when Gonalork's tower descended to the lower realms and the new gods arrived by climbing up it.

They ganged up against us and took everything of ours, chasing our remnants out of Tiliman before splitting the three realms for themselves... Leaving us to wander the chasms of space as we bid our time, waiting for our chance of revenge against them. But you see... we weren't immortals, we had lived a long life and that life was coming to an end. That was when we met a higher existence..."

"Wait! There are beings higher than the gods!?"

Cain nodded. "Yes, but very few. Even to us gods, they were quite mysterious things. Ahem, moving on. This existence gave us a chance to avenge ourselves... And that was by passing our hopes of vengeance to mortal souls from another universe. Of course, this was at the cost of our lives. This existence assure that this method had the highest chance of success, for the gods to suffer our vengeance. Though, not by us personally but through our heirs."

Cain then looked at Riot.

"In short. My time is up... I am a weakened divine being and you were the one i chose to inherit my legacy and dying will. I want you to carry out my will of vengeance against the gods."

"Hah!" Riot thought it was funny.

"Why would i fight against the gods whom i have no enmity against? Ignoring the fact that even you an 'original' god failed to defeat and lost everything!"

Cain looked him in the eye. "If you receive my will of vengeance against the gods. Then my skills, authorities, experience and all that i own shall be yours, forever."

Smoothly going down on one knee he held the cub's paw.

His face turned manly. "Our will!"

"Uh?"

"Your will is my will! Your enemies killed my father! All of them shall face my unending wrath!!!" Riot declared solemnly.

"...sure." Cain looked at him strangely.

Riot smiled. 'Isn't it just revenge? Don't worry make me strong and i'll do my best to punish the gods when the time comes. If I can't, i'll just give up.'

He didn't think such an opportunity would fall on his lap after his near death situation.

Haha! I'm so lucky. This world shall tremble before my name!

"...you hear me?" Cain called him back from his delusions.

"Ah! You said something?" Riot asked.

"I said lie down! I need to complete your body, a ritual is needed to transfer my life energy to you accurately."

"What ritual?"

"Now that you have agreed to take on my will, you are now my heir and i need to seal the deal. I also need to complete your body or else you would die within a week." Cain said as a matter of fact.

Riot got goosebumps.

I did notice something was off with my body the day i reincarnated and after my fight with the assassin. Wait! What did he mean by 'now'? Would he have left me to slowly die if i had refused to take on his will!? Scary!

Riot laid down and watched as Cain bite one of his finger. Black blood came out. He then began drawing some sort of complicated magic formation on him and around him with it.

He looked at the letters and discovered he couldn't understand them. But each letter seemed to be imbued with a deep meaning. He focus on a single letter and suddenly felt he was peaking into the mysteries of evolution and genetics.

His mind suddenly overflowed with diagrams even he who came from an advanced civilization hadn't seen before. Then like he was hit with a bat his head hurt and he felt dizzy. When he regain himself he found out that he had forgotten most of what he saw but a surprising fact was that he had learnt something about anatomy. Though compared to the amount of information that burst into his mind all of a sudden what he learnt was negligible.

"Hey. Cain! What is this language?"

"It's CC. A mysterious language that could only be learnt and used by divine beings. It takes a very long time to learn, even i who have lived for ages has only learnt just over half of it. And I assure you no other god has learnt the CC more than me."

"Wow, is it that hard to learn? How powerful is it?"

"It's not too great at the lower grades, but it's really useful depending on the situation. Anyway, forget about that. For now, i need to concentrate. If i make a mistake here, at the end of the ritual you might discover you no longer have a dick."

A cold wind blew up Riot's legs, he shivered and shut his mouth.

After a while, Riot couldn't help but ask. "This body isn't human right? Are you trying to make me human?"

"No. I sent you into a human body and now i have to modify your race to be more like mine so you can at least use my abilities with more ease."

"Would I be turned into a cat?"

"...What's wrong with being a cat?" Cain eyed him while completing the formation.

"No! Nothing at all. It's just that I'm already used to a humanoid body. It'll be difficult to adapt if i suddenly changed form." Riot smiled wryly.

"Relax, although i'm changing your race, you still get to keep your humanoid form. I'm just going to modify your old organs and strengthen the new ones. You'll love it don't worry."

Cain finished with his drawing and hopped onto Riot's chest.

"You might fall unconscious for a while. Close your eyes and try not to die."

"Eh!?"

Cain raised his suddenly glowing paw and slammed down on Riot's chest which seemed to be the center of the formation. The glow ran from his body into the lines causing the whole magic formation to light up. With a language unknown to Riot, Cain chanted.

"FATE!"