Viridia stepped through space as a verdant aura followed in her wake, consuming the corpse of a slain S-grade who’d come for her life. Raising her hand, a magical seal filled the empty cosmos as a gateway to the Lagoon opened, sending out tendrils to attack the two S-grades, battling her guardians and putting them under immense pressure. Her two opponents both reacted as one of them raised a sword and sent a web of crescent blades her way, severing the tendrils before they had the chance to do any harm.

However, as the cut-up tendrils fell, the pieces all transformed into female figures that shot toward the same sword-wielding warrior from before. His eyes opened wide as once more his blade flashed, all remnants of Viridia’s magic fully dispelled with his follow-up attack.

She had achieved her goal, though, and her two guardians had managed to team up on the second S-grade, injuring him heavily. The sword-wielding S-grade saw his comrade in trouble and, considering the two of them were also running low on resources after having battled for nearly a full day, made a decision.

Pointing his sword to the distant stars above, silver light erupted as his weapon seemed to grow in size. A thousand swords fanned out and bloomed from his raised blade, the aura of a man recognized as a true swordmaster spreading as space itself was cut and broken in several places. Viridia responded as she held out what looked like a doll resembling a toad. Crushing it in her palm, a mirage of a giant creature appeared behind her, opening its mouth as a wave of very much real acid was released, seeking to corrode the swordmaster.

”I will have to take my leave, Lady of the Verdant Lagoon,” the swordmaster said with a bow as his blades met her beam of acid, the two attacks nullifying one another. ”I hope you have time to realize the errors of your way before it’s too late… and if not, let our next meeting be the last.”

Her two guardians tried to attack the swordmaster, but he easily fended them off and created an opening as he and his comrade made their escape, teleporting after making some distance and getting out of the spatial seal created by one of her guardians.

Viridia frowned as she saw the Chosen of one of the Godqueens supporting Yip of Yore leave and clenched her fists in frustration at failing to take down someone so many levels below herself… but she knew it hadn’t really been an option in the first place. Even if she had been stronger, someone of his status was bound to have plenty of trump cards hidden to, at the very least, keep his life.

”Hall Master, the enemy is retreating from this and the neighboring galaxy, regrouping here,” one of her guardians promptly informed her as he summoned an elaborate map using mana, only making Viridia sigh more.

The moment they had any kind of advantage, Yip of Yore had his forces retreat, never giving the Order any chance to land a proper blow. She wanted to give the order to chase but was fully aware that wouldn’t end well for them, so she focused on what she could do.

”Any news of Aisorok?” she asked, inquiring if anything had been uncovered related to the missing newly appointed Hall Master.

”Nothing as of now. He remains missing, but things point to their ambush succeeding,” the guardian responded.

”How about the Bloodwing Duchess?”

”She got back in contact, having successfully escaped, but suffered significant injuries as she had to use a dangerous skill,” the guardian shook his head. ”She estimates full recovery should take her around a century, faster if she has access to high-quality blood.”

”Providing that shouldn’t prove too difficult,” Viridia spoke, waving her hand as a portal appeared. ”We’re heading to the next battlefield immediately. Recover on the way.”

”Yes, Hall Master,” both responded in unison as they took to the next area.

For the Hall Master herself to be this involved in the conflict may seem weird to many, but Viridia truly didn’t have a choice. There weren’t that many S-grades officially part of the Order in the first place, and as the highest-ranked mortal, Viridia felt a responsibility to step up. In part, she did this to show that the Order was fighting back with full force, and so far, she had single-handedly slain over forty S-grades of varying power.

This number barely registered in the statistics of how many had fallen on both sides thus far, which made Viridia very worried. They were outnumbered, and not by a little, even when one considered the people deployed by the Hidden Ones supporting the Order from the shadows. Their faction had never been a large one in the first place, and while each of their S-grades tended to be stronger than the enemy’s, the gap wasn’t that large.

The battle had only been raging for a couple of months, but the damage was already great, and nearly all of the newly established Halls were destroyed. A few had their leaders manage to muster a defense, beating back the enemy and evacuating, while others stupidly tried to hold their ground, but the result was clear on all fronts… they had to retreat or die, taking down as many enemies in the process as possible.

Over the last decade, the Order of the Malefic Viper had actively expanded into most other universes, and now, in only a few months, they had been pushed back out of all but three, with that number rapidly dwindling to only the first universe.

Viridia was trying to help them evacuate while strengthening their foothold in the first universe. No matter what, they couldn’t lose any ground on Primordial-4, and so far, Yip’s forces hadn’t even tried. The fact they hadn’t wasn’t a comforting thing, though, as Viridia knew this was only the beginning.

This was still nothing more than a battle of mortals. Gods moved the pieces on the chessboard, but neither player had decided to get up and punch the other party yet. No one seemed willing to make the first move either.

Yip of Yore and his side didn’t have to. They were winning ground without any direct divine interference, so why would they want to escalate? Everyone knew that the second a god acted directly, it would turn the conflict into something entirely different than what it was now. Even the gods who had been in other Halls of the Order had only been able to stand by and do nothing as the local branch was destroyed, none willing or able to be the one responsible for an escalation. In many instances, even trying to help them evacuate could be seen as gods now getting involved… it was all so truly frustrating.

During all this, countless factions were watching on, but none had gotten involved, not even Valhal. The neutral factions expectedly stayed out of everything, and while some did believe many were just waiting for a chance to pick a side, the predominant belief was that none would get involved once more due to the fear of escalation.

No one knew if the Order had allies no one knew about. If any ancient accords existed that would come into effect if any of the other big players of the multiverse got involved. There was also a fear that an enemy faction would use it as an excuse to get involved. It was very well-known that whenever the Risen got into a big conflict, the Holy Church always found some excuse to also get involved, and vice-versa. There were no indications any of these two were interested in stepping in, though.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

An important distinction also had to be made there. While the Holy Church had allied with the Chosen of Yip and Yore, and the two factions supported one another in the ninety-third universe, there was no alliance or relationship of any kind outside of that one galaxy in the new universe.

However, even if no other factions stepped in, Viridia knew an escalation did have to happen at some point. The problem was that none at the Order of the Malefic Viper knew what their Patron wanted them to do. The Lord Protector had taken charge and directed the mortal forces of the Order, as he had done so many times before, but this time wasn’t the same as the prior conflicts. Their Patron had returned… the Malefic Viper was back… yet so far, he’d done or said nothing.

Even so, Viridia refused to doubt him. He was the Malefic One. A Primordial. The Patron of the Order she had dedicated her life to, and even in this period of conflict, she didn’t waver in her faith once. She would trust the Viper until he either proved them all wrong and dealt with the situation as he saw fit… or something happened that made it impossible to keep faith.

Viridia didn’t see that as an option. She simply couldn’t imagine a world where a Primordial fell, much less the Malefic One… and she wasn’t going to give her enemy a chance to even reach him as long as her life remained intact.

No one could get in contact with the Malefic Viper, but one mortal was certainly trying.

Jake had hurried to leave the Prima Vessel and gone to the small outpost with the teleporter nearby. There, he’d quickly found an empty room in one of the temporary buildings, sealed it using his arcane mana, and gotten to work. He had to put down a pretty basic formation to contact the Malefic Viper, doing what was essentially a religious ritual.

He was nervous as he finished everything and tried to reach out. Guilt was eating at him as he blamed himself for everything that was going on. Jake knew the Viper had a lot of plans and intricate scheming, but as Miranda said, he couldn’t have planned for Jake to fuck up. No one could. If he’d somehow messed everything up due to his own stupid experimentation with Origin Energy...

As these thoughts whirled around in his head, he felt the bridge between universes form as he made contact with the Malefic Viper. Jake also felt that the ritual was barely needed anymore, meaning that he could communicate like he had before all this went down. It could be compared to a phone line having been cut over, and Jake had now fixed it and fully reestablished the connection... at least for now.

Jake also instantly felt the Viper’s gaze back upon him, and before Jake could speak, the Viper’s voice echoed in his head.

”You look like a mess… something stressing you out?”

The tone of the Primordial felt out of place. He sounded relaxed and unbothered, making Jake confused as he answered. ”You’re stressing me out. What the hell is happening on your end? Something about a war? How are you doing?”

”Wow, instantly putting all the responsibility on me, huh? Well, alright, yeah, we got a little scuffle going on over here. It’s just the kind of thing that happens when gods compete; mortals get caught in the crossfire. You shouldn’t worry overly much about it. It’s not like any of your C-grade friends will get involved. As for how I’m doing? Could be better, could be worse, I guess,” the Viper said, the last part in an almost teasing tone.

”No, really, how are you?” Jake kept asking, concerned. ”You used your Transcendent Skill to help me during the event…”

”First, let’s just make it clear those are two separate things, both problematic. Interfering in the ninety-third universe wasn’t something the system liked, and I did indeed have to pay for having done so. Transcendent Skills also all require a price to be paid upon usage, especially when the skill is fully used, as it was in this case. Combined, using a Transcendent Skill to interfere with a system event in a restricted universe is indeed not something that can be done for free, and a significant level of backlash is only to be expected,” Villy explained.

Jake wasn’t sure why the Viper wanted to point out that those two things weren’t the same, especially in this situation where they both clearly mattered. However, he felt like the Viper didn’t want to tell him everything, so he asked the most important question:

”Will you be alright?”

”I dare anyone to claim I won’t be,” the Viper simply responded, his voice confident. ”I told you this many times before, Jake. Don’t worry about me. You’re far too young and weak to be worrying about me, and clearly, you’ve shown plenty of propensity to make yourself not alright on several occasions, so maybe you should focus on yourself first? Speaking of… how are you doing? You look a lot better than I expected you to.”

”I’m fully healed,” Jake said, and for the first time the response of the Viper seemed surprised.

”Already? Not bad, not bad at all… Palate is still fucked, though, but we can talk about that later. Hm, I also feel something else different… wait, what happened to that Unique Lifeform of yours?”

Jake didn’t question how the Viper knew something had happened as he proceeded to explain what had gone down. He gave a super brief overview of the system event at the Viper’s prompting and then explained what had happened to the Fallen King and everything related to the Desolate Child of Loss and what he’d learned, though he did get the feeling the god had guessed a lot related to the Desolate Child from when he healed Jake. Villy was quiet for a bit after Jake was done talking, as he seemed to consider everything.

”The Runemaiden is correct, and this is clearly a False God you’re dealing with. Man, your little world really does have everything for something like that to appear, especially such a rare and powerful one. The Records of your galaxy are seriously out of whack and something worth studying more closely with all the weird shit going on. Also, I’m sorry about the Unique Lifeform. I can help take a look at the mask when you can come to the Order, but let me offer some words of comfort: as long as the Truesoul remains, there is hope. Even if the entire body is destroyed and there is nothing else, everything can be rebuilt with the Truesoul as the basis, assuming the system allows it and the Unique Lifeform was as competent as I believe him to be,” Villy commented on the situation, his words offering some comfort. Jake had bitten onto one portion of what he said, though.

”You said ”dealing with” the False God. Present tense. Do you mean that…?” Jake asked, hoping the Viper wasn’t insinuating what he thought he was.

”Based on what you told me, it more than likely still lives. False Gods are very hard to kill as long as faith in them persists. They are very malleable creatures that are a pain to get rid of, as death often only means they undergo change rather than perishing.”

”Well, fuck,” Jake muttered.

”Eh, going by what you said, you clearly have the tools to handle it. If nothing else, send the Runemaiden after it; she can take care of the little False God,” the Viper said casually.

”No fucking way am I sending her alone,” Jake protested. ”Unless you mean to take her with me. If we all go together, we can definitely find a way to kill it for good.”

”Why bother? Just send her. She’s a damn Runemaiden fighting a False God that seemingly possesses only the powers of desolation. It’s not a fair fight at all,” the Viper insisted in his casual tone.

”Does she hard-counter the Desolate Child or something?” Jake asked, unsure why the Viper insisted she could handle the False God and even more unsure why he seemed kind of annoyed at the prospect despite being the one suggesting it.

”Something like that… anyway, let’s discuss more relevant matters,” the Viper said, getting things back on track after what seemed like a random side track. ”Get me fully up to speed on how things are looking in your universe because all I know from over on this side of the proverbial veil between worlds is that Yip of Yore hasn’t just launched an offensive in the old universes.”

”Yeah, shit’s also going down here…” Jake said, as he very briefly gave the Viper an overview of what he had just been told only a few minutes prior.

”Sounds like he’s going for a big takeover, huh…” the Viper said, deep in thought.

”For sure,” Jake nodded. ”Do you have any thoughts on things?”

”I do, I do. But I would like to hear where your mind is at first,” the Viper said.

Jake was silent for a moment before sighing. ”I just wanna fucking kill the guy and get this bullshit over with. I’m tired of Ell’Hakan just starting shit all the time. You know, I was already planning to launch an offensive, but the moment I am about to do something, he moves first. It’s so damn frustrating. I wanted to attack before communication even opened up, but I wanted to talk to you first to make clear I wasn’t messing anything up on your end… well, more than I already have. Anyway, that’s where my head is at.”

Villy thought for a while as he spoke in the kind of tone where Jake knew the god was grinning on the other side. ”You know… we could do something really funny and entirely unexpected.”

”What?” Jake asked, curious.

”Give the Chosen exactly what he wants… a heretic and would-be Usurper of the Malefic Viper.”