Chapter 971: A Game Played by Two. 2
These words caused the God King of the Celtic pantheon, and the Heavenly Father to widen their eyes! They completely forgot about this fact!
They were only thinking about the present and forgot about the future. Unfortunately, they couldn't back down now that they had spoken their words, or they would lose face, and be seen as fools for not considering something as basic as this.
Even the gentle Heavenly Father was not exempt from pride, after all, how could he not be proud of what he is? He is a great creator.
Indra internally clicked his tongue when he heard Shiva's silence, he looked at the man with a look that said; what are you waiting for? Make your offer! Stop being silent!
Shiva sighed internally in the face of Indra. 'Again rushing me, is it because of this that I call him incapable of ruling. Who put this idiot in power again?'
'... Oh, it was me.' Shiva felt like facepalming now.
Anyway, he needed to make a decision, thinking about what to offer, he thought of a cursed object that caused deep discomfort, an object he wanted to get rid of as much as possible.
Shiva raised his hand, and the next moment, a black sphere that looked like a mini black sun with black beams emanating around it like tentacles appeared.
The moment this appeared, the place was filled with a very uncomfortable feeling, they didn't know why they felt this way, they just felt it as they looked at that black sphere.
The Limbo Guy narrowed his eyes slightly when he saw this sphere. 'What is this doing here? It was supposed to be in the upper sectors.'
"That was something I stumbled upon, something that carried the essence of death. You are a goddess of death, right? I believe this will help you."
Hela looked at the sphere with uneasy eyes. 'Essence of death? Who does this fool think he's fooling? This has nothing to do with death!'
As Hela was about to open her mouth, she heard Victor's voice in her head. [Ask him if he has more of these spheres. Show genuine interest.]
From the corner of her eye, Hela glanced at Victor's expression, and she saw the man with a curious look gazing at the sphere, his dragon eyes seemed to shimmer violet occasionally.
Following Victor's orders, Hela changed her look of discomfort to a slow and interested one until she genuinely showed interest when apparently seeing something in that sphere.
"Do you have more of these spheres, Lord Shiva?"
Shiva raised an eyebrow at Hela, he didn't expect this reaction. "Do you know what this is?"
'I don't know! I have no idea what this is!' She thought internally, but externally, she spoke:
"One could say so."
Shiva looked at Hela with a slight shock. It is worth noting that he is a very ancient god, for him not to know something was very rare, unless there is an anomaly like Victor, he was generally aware of most situations, for Hela who was much younger than him to know this, she was quite good, isn't she?
Shiva's opinion of Hela increased slightly.
Hela squirmed internally when she saw the positive look Shiva was sending her way, as if she were a daughter who had done something good, that look disgusted her.
Shiva must have realized this because her face changed from interest to expressionless, an ancient god like him was very good at reading the emotions of other beings.
"Responding to your question, I don't have any more of these spheres, I just stumbled upon this one casually."
"I see..." Hela spoke, and as she was about to say something again, she heard Victor's voice once more.
[Ask him where he found these spheres.]
"Can you tell me where you found this sphere?"
"Why do you need to know?" Instead of answering, Shiva asked back.
'I don't know! Why don't you just answer my question!? Stop complicating everything!' Hela was getting a headache from this interaction.
"Just kindly answer my question." She was quite cordial.
Shiva nodded and vaguely responded, "I was on a journey of self-discovery when I found this sphere in an abandoned temple."
[Ask him how long ago this happened.]
"How long ago was this?"
"Hmm... a million years ago? It might have been more, my memory is a bit vague."
These words made Hela's curiosity raise a bit, and this curiosity increased even more when she heard Victor's voice.
[As expected... It's an alien object.]
'Alien object? So it's related to other beings that came to the planet?' Hela thought she was not unaware of the information about beings that came from outside the planet. Noble vampires and werewolves were perfect examples of these foreigners.
[Say that while studying an alien object may be interesting, it doesn't hold the full value of a pantheon considering the importance of the latter.]
Hela rolled her eyes internally, she was feeling like a puppet of Victor now... For some reason, this feeling wasn't bad, especially when she felt her mind connected at such a deep level to Victor's, she could sense his superficial feelings very well, and the overwhelming and constant obsessive love for his wives.
A feeling that she envied a little... Just a little.
"Although studying an alien object may be interesting. The fact that you don't know what it does, potentially having harmful or even devastating effects, this object alone doesn't hold the value of a pantheon."
"Alien object, huh... So you know what it is."
"More or less, I have theories, but nothing accurate, after all, it's something from outside." Hela was effectively talking nonsense with a serious face now.
"Fair enough." Shiva nodded, he tried to get rid of a useless object for him and try to get a pantheon in return, but as the other party was smarter than expected, he decided to be fair.
What? Although he is a fair god, that doesn't mean he won't take advantage of a situation if it's convenient. These beings were not saints or will-less angels who followed their creator's order, they were gods, and if there's something everyone knows when interacting with gods, it's that their mood was capricious.
Shiva raised his hand, and a book appeared in his hand, along with two essences. "The essence of Indra, Indra's personal book about his divinity discoveries, and my essence of destruction with memories of my discoveries."
"What!?" Indra was shocked, simply by the fact that this man was offering something that belonged to him!
The look Shiva gave to Indra made the man fall silent, his look was quite expressive; If I'm going to lose something, you're going to lose something too.
"With enough time you can use these two essences to train, and if you're talented, you may acquire the divinity of storms and destruction."
Destruction was a divinity of the negative scope, Hela as a goddess related to the negative side could learn destruction with enough time, but the storm was a mystery to Shiva.
Considering that the storm came from Indra, who was a god of the positive side, he didn't know if she would be able to learn the storm and make it her own, making her become the storm of the negative side.
Elementary concepts are in the gray area of creation, after all, they can be supported by both the positive and negative sides, it all depends on the inclination of the host.
Evidence of this fact would be Amaterasu's Fire, which was a divine fire derived from her sun divinity, and the hellfire that War once used in the past, although both were the element of fire, their characteristics varied from individual to individual.
[Decline. Say the following: You are once again offering something that I cannot use in the short term, and to be honest, your essence is worthless to me. At this moment, summon your brother, Jormungand.]
"I decline."
"...What?" Shiva didn't expect this refusal.
"I apologize if I offended you, Lord Shiva, but you are only offering things that may or may not be useful to me. I want things that are useful in the short term... And to be honest, your essence is worthless to me." She huffed.
Snake sounds are heard, and a small snake coils around Hela's neck and looks at Shiva.
Indra and the gods near him flinched for a few seconds when they saw the END god's gaze.
They could instinctively feel their end when they looked at that creature, everyone here was old enough to know that Jormungand's venom was extremely deadly, if you were bathed in that venom, the entire existence of the being would be deleted without the possibility of reincarnation.
Just like a human presses the DELETE key on the computer, they would simply cease to exist.
Indra looked at The Limbo Guy: "Why is this creature here? This shouldn't be allowed?"
"He is her companion, just as I allow you to bring companions, the same will happen with Hela as a guest. She's not breaking the rules." He replied with a neutral expression.
Indra just grumbled and said nothing more, he knows that nothing can enter this place if the primordial himself doesn't allow it, but he does nothing to make himself less nervous, the only relief he has is that he knows that the primordial will not allow the END beast to take any hostile action.
[My brothers are beings of the END, much higher than your mere destruction, why would I want that divinity?]
"My brothers are beings of the END, the concept that can erase someone from existence, a divinity much higher than your mere destruction. Why would I want something as useless as that? Offer something else." Hela smiled coldly at him, she was having much more fun than expected following Victor's instructions.
[Why don't you offer me the primordial essence of Madness and Dream that you stole thousands of years ago when you visited the lands of a certain extinct pantheon.]
Momentarily surprised to hear Victor's request, she continued: "Since you cannot offer anything useful. I will make my offer... I know! Why don't you offer me the primordial essence of dream and madness that you stole from the ancient extinct pantheon?"
Shiva's eyes narrowed slightly at Hela's insult, and even more so by her words, the power of destruction covered his body with a weight worthy of the strongest God.
"How do you know about that?"
"Does it matter?" She spoke disdainfully as the power of death covered her body to resist Shiva's pressure.
"You-."
"Lords and ladies. Are we going to get physical? If so, let me join the fun too." Victor's twisted smile covered his face, in the blink of an eye, reality seemed to flicker and tremble like an old TV, at that moment everyone saw the appearance of something terrible far beyond their imagination.
But just as quickly as this appearance appeared, it disappeared the next moment, making everyone think it was just their imagination. Few knowing that it definitely wasn't imagination. The degree of danger Victor posed in the minds of these people had just increased even more. Shiva being one of those included.
These words made Shiva immediately retract his power, and Hela shortly after.
"A fight will not happen here." The Limbo Guy spoke in a heavy tone.
"Eh? No fight? Boring." Victor pouted as if someone had committed a crime against him, an expression that was terribly beautiful, making everyone present try their best not to look at him.
Something that was not followed by his wives and Hela who looked at him with warm and obsessive gazes. A gaze that Hela was completely unaware she was giving.
They honestly found it attractive how he goes from very scary to cute in the next second.
[Focus.]
'Right...' Hela snaps out of her state, and blushes slightly because of the thoughts she was having at that moment. 'I need to finish this deal as quickly as possible and stay as far away from him as possible.'
"And so, do you accept or not?"
Instead of accepting or denying, he said, "...From the beginning, you were after this, huh, because of that, you didn't accept the offers of the others."
"Who knows~?" Hela just smiled.
"Regardless of whether I'm after these essences or not. It still doesn't change the fact that I have a whole pantheon in my hands, and I am completely willing to abandon this pantheon for this essence."
"And since you're not making good use of these essences, why not give them to me who can use them to their full power? Put the essence of dream and madness on the table as well as this unknown essence, and I will accept."
Victor smiled inwardly when he saw Hela taking control without him saying anything more. 'She completely understood my intentions.'
Honestly, the unknown essence was a bonus that Victor didn't foresee, he was after the dream and madness, two divinities that would be quite useful to him. Victor had known for a long time that Shiva wasn't as saintly as everyone made him out to be, after all, he was also a god.
The strongest god until recently, and you don't earn that title without doing anything against others.
Thanks to Diablo's memories, whose demon had read records of the 'kind' visit to the extinct pantheon, the demon had some powers of the god of destruction.
...