Une.

Gods- Existences that transcend strength, destiny and existence itself.

The word itself does have a nonsensical number of interpretations, but they all merge in one: Powerful.

There are several levels and interpretation itself as well, but this time that is not what it has to be commented on.

Because this interpretation that declares a god is a powerful being, there has been countless amount of people calling themselves gods and bathing on self-satisfaction.

Yet, they little know about the truth… About the truth of how “men” truly becomes a god.

Deux.

Tsukuyomi is known as the god of the moon in shinto religion and brother of Amaterasu, the sun goddess.

Even if the person who attacked Engel and co. is named [Tsukuyomi], it’s not as if that is his real name. Before him, there has been other [Tsukuyomi] doing as they pleased with the name even if it meant create, kill or love.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIIIIIIIIIT!!”

Shouted Tsukuyomi whilst inside a pure white space and banged in the floor as he was in his knees.

Everytime he banged on the floor, the room would turn dim as if there was an electric failure, but the room didn’t have any source of light or electric apparatus that would cause such phenomenon.

It was because Tsukuyomi’s rage affected his [Temple].

A [Temple] is a god’s personal space. It wasn’t his house or even his office, but his very personal space where he reigned everything inside. A right given to him when he became god. In that very space, he could do anything; making it massive, making it to the size of a pea, make it look like hell, make it look like a grassland… Or even make it look like a private room.

Thus, he was resenting how his plans were just thrown off.

“Fuck!! Everything was so well done! Everything was supposed to be perfeeect!!!”

Shouted Tsukuyomi in rage.

It was understandable; frustration over a failed plan is always vexing.

While trying to find a fault to his plan, Tsukuyomi started to recall all of what he had done until now.

How he placed a low-level [Divine Creature] in order to avoid Engel and co. to arrive their own dimension and in case placed a slightly stronger one after.

How he threw them to an unknown world so he could play with them.

How he had prepared since months ago someone who would amass power, oppose them and with a weak will so he could control and destroy everyone.

How he called others in order to crush any lingering power they could show, and raise another pair that would drown in despair so he would control them and keep destroying the [Gods of War].

Everything was for the sake of his revenge against Amaterasu.

Amaterasu had chosen these 5 people as prospects of participants and so he wished to destroy them in order to harm the chief god.

After all, where she to lose her [Participants], she would be deemed as unable to rule.

But, what had been off the charts was, Engel learning [Mind].

The crucial plan of him destroying the [Gods of War] was that they couldn’t use [Mind].

Tsukuyomi, in his weakened state, would put up a fight but lose to any of the gods, but with [Mind] in his repertoire, win would be as easy to step on a bug.

And while recalling his fails in perspective, he then recalled a certain part of his plan.

This part was the one needed to keep it in a cycle- The summoned parallels.

As a god, Tsukuyomi had the ability to move past dimensions, and so he helped a pair of parallels to arrive and brought personally another pair, so the second pair would be killed by him controlling one of Engel’s companions or someone native from this world and so, after using up “Schwartz” and “Blau”’s bodies, he would prepare another pair to keep killing prospects to participants.

He had specifically given 2 weapons to this pair- A common [Mind]-clad sword which he casually named [Dainsleif] and certain [Spawn Hole] that could create hundreds of thousands of [Asterisk], but at the price of a great amount of energy for that purpose.

He had planned to suck out energy from the gods of this world in order to make it happen, or so he had programmed the item.

Just as he was thinking of how to fix the blunder he had stepped into, a sound was heard all around the [Temple].

It signalized that the cube was draining energy from someone.

He had prepared it in case that he forgot to check the progress of the events, and now, one of them was unfolding.

If he wasn’t wrong, the [Arche] he had possessed with the help of a secret article he had obtained, were knocked out before they could start to create despair for the summoned parallels.

Surely, they would be taken to another place but he, at the spur of the moment, just decided to abandon that side of the plan.

After that, he realized Engel possessed [Mind] so what he wanted to try was now nearly impossible. Even if he was badly hurt, [Mind] would protect him.

Yet right now, he had found a way out of this problem.

Trois.

He exited his [Temple] and decided to go check the cube. While exerting all his might to hide his [Mind] from anyone who could detect him as precaution.

Through the panoramic view of the room, Tsukuyomi could see how Engel was fighting in order to avoid being drained dry the cube.

Tsukuyomi smirked. He rejoiced in his heart as he held himself back. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to intervene and kill already Engel, but first he needed to wait Engel filled the cube with his energy.

Suddenly, Engel stopped the drainage of energy and started a breakthrough.

When a user of [Mind] undergoes a breakthrough, a thick [Mind] barrier surrounds the user. Only a person who is several [Algorithms] above the one breaking through can destroy the barrier.

Tsukuyomi could only wait and see as his enemy was getting stronger as he was weakened by Amaterasu.

The only thing to be happy about is that Engel was also deprived of his [Mind] which could strengthen the spawns of [Asterisk].

The [Asterisk] are beings born from pure energy, whether it was evil energy or goodwill energy, it didn’t matter. Yet, only the ones spawned from evil energy would be called [Asterisk].

This evil energy are remnants of hatred plus mana and spirit. The goodwill energy or positive energy is mana, spirit and good intentions.

Still, it has never been witnessed an [Asterisk] born with [Mind] integrated as it was nearly impossible, even for a god, to meld mana and mind. Of course, it’s possible to [Asterisk] to be born solely of [Mind], but the action of fusing these two energies was practically unattainable.

Either way, even though his enemy turner powerful, his means to defeat him also did.

“Eh?!”

*Hmpbp!*

Suddenly something startled Tsukuyomi. So much he leaked a small voice, uncharacteristic of him. He suddenly closed his mouth in order to hide his tremor.

He could feel it.

He could sense it.

A power beyond even Engel’s.

It didn’t mean it was a power above him, or even a strong power… It was a if an instinctive alarm ringed inside him.

A natural enemy… Someone he must run away from, or kill at all costs.

And then it ended.

It could have been 3 seconds, 3 hours, very well a eternity…. Tsukuyomi could not describe the lapse of time he spent in such frightened state.

(What… The fuck was that?!)

He cried in his heart as he tried to brush off such dreadful feeling.

Then, it broke. The space was torn and people started to exit the crack in space that was just created.

(The gods!!!)

Shouted Tsukuyomi internally as he was conflicted between his fear and hate.

Quatre.

After Izaak was taken a ‘bit’ of his energy, the box obtained all it needed in order to fill its share. Then, as Tsukuyomi was the true owner of the box, he could figure it was full and called it back.

He intensely gave his speech and created thousands of [Asterisk] while noticing Engel had woken up.

But by now it didn’t matter anymore, everyone would be swallowed in a seemingly endless spawn of [Asterisk].

Suddenly, after he decided to stop the spawn and save some of the energy for later, he felt an icy aura increasing.

It did not only increase but also had a strange feeling to it.

Just as he realized what it was, he felt a little chill in his back.

He moved his sight to where the aura came from, and there he saw Engel looking at him, and next to him…

An humanoid ice-like mannequin was floating while also glaring to Tsukuyomi.