In a different realm, several shadowy figures gathered looking at a crystal ball that showed images of a masked man killing everyone in their passage.

“The future hasn’t changed. We need to do something before he becomes too powerful and kills all creation.”

*****

“Die!”

With all my strengths I brandished my sword and swung.

The deer-skulled creature caught my blade with his bare hand, allowing me to activate my divine power.

“Rust!”

Soon his entire arm became covered in a dark brown substance, before falling to dust.

Being the Minor God of Rust, I could anything into dust, even gods and, yet…

The monster howled while where his arm was a back liquid spilled out. Froom the liquid, several arms emerged, and soon, the other monster stud before me.

“Again?!”

I have been here a week at least. It was some sort of corridor made from some sort of rock, that stretched for infinity filled with these abominations. Each time I killed one, they multiplied and came to attack me.

The wounded monster stopped yelling, from his wound a new arm grew out, holding a black spear. The others also manifested a similar weapon, like swords, axes, or even bows.

“Damn, I will kill you all!”

****

“Where am I?”

Ever since we have been absorbed by the Divine Domain of that demon, I have been alone here. These identical rooms, with the yellow carpets and wallpapers, were like a maze. And the buzzing!

It came from the lights that were over my head. I could hear it wherever I went it was maddening! I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. All I saw was yellow and occasionally black.

“WHERE ARE YOU?~”

“COME OUT~”

“LET’S PLAY.”

Oh, no.

From one of the rooms, something crawled out. It looked like a giant slug with several arms on its belly, while dragging his body through the floor, it left a blood-like liquid behind itself. It had no distinguishable head, just a huge mouth that was filled with needle-like teethes.

“THERE YOU ARE!~ COME TO ME.~ LETS EAT.~”

“Get away from me! Dust Bolt.”

I shut the thing in the head dissecting its body in two, revealing its jelly like meat.

Soon the monster, like the ones previously encountered turned into dust.

“It will be back. It will.”

I already killed five of these things, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the same entity.

“WHERE ARE YOU?~”

“I CAN SMELL YOU!~”

He was far away from me, around 6 rooms away. I could tell the distance because I have been stuck here for a month now, only staying alive thanks to my divinity.

“I need to get out of here!”

*****

“Two hours have passed.”

I sipped from my drink while making sure the infusions were at their place.

“Still, who thought that there were so many idiots’ gods?”

When I finished, I sat back at the bench?

My Divine Domain, Chapel of the Fallen was a special one. When activated, it will materialize a ruin of a church without a roof, that showed a full moon. Once someone is entered, they will be immediately hypnotized and trapped in an imaginary world of their own creation, a dream from where there is no escape.

Well, there was ONE escape. It’s mandatory, I wasn’t a protagonist, so I didn’t have an “ultimate perfect indestructible” magic.

Since this was my Divine Domain, I could mess with their dreams a little. I put the exit right next to the entrance, and these fools didn’t even notice it.

“They are stupid, aren’t they?” I asked one of the mummified corpses that was sitting next to me. I didn’t know why, but there was a bunch of old bodies here, all dried up, wearing no cloth. Maybe it has some sort of symbolism or something.

“I will give them another hour, before killing them.”

Right now, while the two of them were laying on the altar, trapped in their own nightmares, I was extracting their blood. Not only it tasted good, but it will surely help with my research along with their bodies.

“Hey with this I killed more than 10 gods! I am amazing!”

*****

??? POV, in a different world:

Something is happening.

The air around me tasted different. It was still rich in QI but now it had a pungent smell, that somehow recognized.

Dealmaker.

I stopped my meditation and jumped off the roof of the temple. It has been over 10 years since that accident.

Since then, I became strong enough to become one of the Azure Blue Serpent Sect elders and train a great number of talented disciples, making the sect stand amongst the top 10 of this country.

During the decade, those who were possessed by those “specters” as our master elder called them, have already been treated. Our doctors and alchemist found a way to extract the specters from one’s body and seal them away. Still, this method wasn’t perfect, some’s infection routed so deeply that removing it caused them to die.

“It’s time.”

Using the abundant amount of qi in me, I started to float in the air to reach a nearby mountain peak.

There I planted my blade into the rock, sending a great amount of energy into it.

“Qi Radar.”

With the knowledge of my previous lives, I came up with various techniques. This one was something that one of my companions one’s taught me. Originally, it used mana, but qi is also good.

Soon I pinpointed the location of the one I was looking for.

It was far away around 50 Km away from me.

“Ninja Skill: Flash Step.”

By compressing some energy into my leg I started to run, making my surroundings all blurry.

Within minutes I arrived before my target.

“I was waiting for you.”

Sitting on the top of a giant rock and snow-white tiger. It almost glowed in the sunlight its yellow eyes shining with intelligence.

“You are finally here.” the tiger spoke, revealing his mouth that was nothing but darkness.

It jumped down, while transforming before me.

When it landed it became a muscular man wearing a bright red kimono. His hair was white yet he didn’t seem old.

“My lord, you called for me?”

I kneeled before him, my head parallel to the ground.

After the fight of those two gods, the wounded queen opened the door of the celestials to me, allowing me to meet with several other gods. One of them, who I became a disciple was the God of Martial arts Xuanwu.

The god stayed silent before speaking.

“Today, your training will reach a new phase. You have learned almost every combat and fighting style I could teach you. Now it’s time to put your knowledge to the test.”

The god took out a carefully folded paper that he tossed before me.

“Your old enemy is back. I don’t know what he is planning, but it seems like he is in the middle of creating a huge settlement in the middle of a chasm located in the Desert of Souls. Go there and learn everything you can about them. Don’t cause any ruckus, we don’t want them to run away.”

“Yes, master!”

I took the map, glanced at its general direction, before started running in its general direction.

Dealmaker. I will kill you.

*****

-In Hell-

The party has ended and all the guests have already left except for a chosen few.

They sat around a roundtable, made from solid silver, each member staying silent like a tomb.

When they sat down, over their heads, a yellow screen appeared, showing their honorable titles and names.

[

He Who Eats Magma,

Burner of Words,

Scourger of Life,

God of Magma, Volos

]

He was huge, almost 2 meters tall, wearing black armor, with yellow light coming out from his joints and sparks flew out of his visors.

[

Sinkers of Ships,

Sailors Bain,

Enemy of Land,

Goddess of Sea Storms, Aipaloovik

]

A blue catfish with legs and arms, covered in a thick mucus.

[

First Blooddrinker,

Queen of The Red Moon,

Nightmare of Mankind,

Goddess of Blood, Ichor

]

A woman in a red dress, with hair and eyes as red as fresh blood.

[

She Who Hangs Herself,

Chocker of Gods,

Wire-Puller of Fate,

Goddess of Dolls, Apanchomene.

]

A child, whose entire body was now covered by a cloak, made different fabrics stitched together.

[

The First Killer,

The Master of War,

Father of Violence,

God of Murder, Cain

]

A Caucasian man, wearing a white shirt and pants with its to arms covered in a red liquid.

[

Master of Nightmares,

The progenitor of Abominations,

The First Horror

God of Monsters, Typhon

]

A blob of pink flesh, that had faces of monsters and humans appearing and disappearing on its surface

[

Taker of Hope,

Breaker of Fait,

The Door of Hopelessness,

God of Despair; Oizys

]

A tall, shadow-like entity.

[

The Fallen,

Judge of the Dead,

Forgiven by Heaven,

God of Judgement, Dike

]

A white-capped human covering his face with a surgical mask.

[

King of the Fallen Realm,

Forgotten by Time,

Fallen from Divinity,

Demon of the Sand, Sadman

]

A young man with white hair and entirely white eyes, whit his body covered by dirt.

[

Antlered King,

Eater of Gods,

Taker of Light,

God of Madness, Melino

]

A suited man with the deer skull mask, wearing a white coat.

[

The One Who Seeks,

Embodiment of Greed,

The First Thief,

God of Stealing, Lavendros

]

A small goblin-like being, with four extra arms on its back, tightly holding a treasure chest to itself, while looking at everyone as if he was expecting to be betrayed.

]

Writer of Sins,

Librarian of Darkness,

Scripter of Gods,

God of Cursed Texts, Metatron

]

An old man wearing thick glasses and a white mediteranian cloth with several papers stuck in his bag on his back.

There were two chairs empty, one of them looking like a throne made from silver skulls.

“Sorry, for being late, I had some stuff to do!”

Lukas in his red suit quickly sat next to the throne, smiling like an idiot.

Like the others, a screen also appeared over his head.

[

The First Fallen,

Tainter of Souls,

One of the First Great Divine Beings,

Elder God of Hell, Lucifer

]

“Okay, the first order of business is to welcome our newest member. Give it up to the God of Madness, Melino!”

No one said or reacted. They just sat silently, waiting for the main part.

Feeling embarrassed, Lukas coughed, before becoming serious.

“Right, so eeehhhh…yes. As you are all aware, the gods upstairs have become quite arrogant. They are treating us like demons or monsters and they even destroyed some of the lover gods' worlds, because they deemed them unethical. Some ‘good’ god even alienated their world so much, we can’t send people there, they would simply die. From what I heard from my sources, a faction has formed amongst them, who wish to eradicate all of us. The only reason why we aren’t at war is because of the King and Queen, but I am ready to bet that in a short hundred years, the bloodshed will be inevitable.”

Silence. Not dramatic silence, just nobody had anything to say.

“So, I decided to do something about this. We have people here with rich resources, connections, and manpower. Our newest member possesses an entire realm composed of factories so the production rate will not be a problem.”

Melino lifted his head a little bit.

“…Mr. Lukas, I don’t wish to disagree, but the production rate doesn’t depend on the number of factories but the quality of the items. If you want cheap weapons, one of my factories could make hundreds of them.”

There was an awkward silence between them. The girl in the red dress stared at Melno, her red eyes, glowing with anger.

“Yes, what I meant is that we don’t need to worry about a place where can build or weapons or troops.”

“…If I allow it.” Melino took out a cigarette and lighted it with a spark from his finger, before placing it between his teeth.

Feeling that there was no reason for arguing, Lucas continued talking.

“ The next thing we need to discuss is what will be our first move. I recommend we take over some of their worlds, without them noticing it. This way we can secure hostages and information for our troops.”

“But didn’t you just say that some of those words are so alien? We can’t create troops directly there, so what you want to do about those?”

To the question of the fish-lady, Melino answered.

“I believe Mr. Lukas called me for this reason. If I can access the world, I may be able to send some troops of my own there.”

“This time you are the one who is wrong.” From his pocket, he took out a dirty gold coin and placed it on the table. “ Hell is the garbage dump of souls that didn’t been deemed to be worth enough to be reincarnated. This, my friends, is the soul of a fallen hero. All of you will get three and send them to the planet I chose for you. They still have their unique skills and with your blessing, they will become unstoppable! War is upon us people and these heroes will be the soldiers that will win them for us!”

*****

“Bullshit.”

Just three? What the hell those he thinks these guys are? They are dead, for crying out loud and the person who killed them is probably alive and well! Even with my blessing, these idiots will surely be killed again!

While I was fuming, I arrived at one of my factories.

There is a Mind Eater, a floating big brain that I created from the cerebrum of different monsters, waited for me.

“My Lord! What may I do for you?”

“It's time. We are using the A-game.”

“Oh my!”

The brain wiggled with his tentacles, exited.

With him, I went to the door that was the biggest in the entire building.

In it were hundreds if not thousands of glass cylinders filled with a green liquid, containing something that looked like humans.

They were my homunculi that I grow special for war. Each one contains divine blood and my avatar fluid, with some special skills that I gave them. I expected that one could kill a hero with ease and combined they might be even able to trample over a god.

“Marvelous. These shall be MY TRUE army! Prepare yourself “Good” gods, the fun will soon begin.”