Chapter 467: The Big Three
(The Eternal Garden, Kaelith’s Estate)
If there was one thing that Kaelith despised more than stepping outside the Eternal Garden, it was allowing unrefined beasts to step into it, tainting its sanctity with their barbarism and lack of taste.
And today, unfortunately, was one of those rare, ill-fated days.
Mauriss the Deceiver arrived first.
Half-naked as always, bare-chested and unbothered, his skin pale and smooth as if it had never once been kissed by sunlight, while his long obsidian hair floated unnaturally above his head, suspended mid-air by a faint stasis field, shifting ever so slightly with every step he took, as though gravity itself bowed in his presence.
Kaelith, poised and dressed in flowing silk robes stitched with celestial thread, narrowed his eyes at the man’s exposed chest and promptly looked away, annoyed by the way Mauriss’s nipples seemed to always point dead ahead, as if locked in perpetual confrontation with the universe.
He hated it.
Not because it was vulgar, though it was. But because it was intentional. A calculated mockery of elegance, designed to disturb and disrupt the harmony Kaelith had so painstakingly crafted over millennia, here in the Eternal Garden.
And then came Helmuth.
The bastard.
Kaelith didn’t even need to turn to know he had arrived.
For the horrid stench struck first: acrid, pungent, metallic, a mixture of blood, sweat, and charred meat, like the inside of a slaughterhouse that had never once seen a mop.
A scent that immediately offended the flora of the Eternal Garden, as flowers recoiled and vines instinctively withdrew into the soil, trying to escape whatever foul curse had just crossed the threshold.
Helmuth walked with heavy, thudding steps, his skin once pale like marble, three millennia ago, now stained a blotchy red-black, as years of bloodshed had seeped into his pores and never been washed out.
He carried his axe like a casual accessory, slung across his back like a child would a toy.
But that axe was anything but harmless.
The moment its edge scraped the soil of the Eternal Garden, a visible wave of decay erupted from the point of contact, as the plants within a two-meter radius withered into ash, leaving behind a ring of rot that seared into Kaelith’s vision.
The Eternal Sovereign’s jaw clenched.
But he said nothing.
As always, he said nothing.
Because despite the fact that he was arguably the most refined, most intelligent, and most enlightened being alive, he was also a realist.
And the reality of the Universal Government was that their power over the six great clans rested exactly on this unholy trinity.
Kaelith, the Face.
Mauriss, the Mind.
Helmuth, the Sword.
They did not get along, not even slightly. Yet every few decades, when threats emerged that even their delegated godlings could not handle, or when matters too delicate for subordinates demanded direct intervention, they met.
And today was one of those cursed days.
Kaelith stood in the center of his marble pavilion, surrounded by cascading fountains and glowing silver-leafed trees, as his eyes flicked between the two beasts before him.
One reeked of gravity magic and manipulation.
The other reeked of blood and death.
As all he truly wanted was for this meeting to end before either of them decided to breathe too heavily and kill another orchid.
"Welcome," Kaelith said, his voice as still as a moonlit lake, betraying none of his distaste as he gestured to the two opposing seats carved from dreamstone, placed precisely equidistant from his own.
Helmuth ignored the chair entirely and dropped to the ground with a grunt, crossing his legs with a clang as his metal-plated boots crushed a few of the garden’s sacred clovers beneath them.
Mauriss, of course, didn’t sit either. He floated down lazily, letting his legs fold beneath him mid-air as he hovered just a few inches above the seat, too arrogant to ever let himself touch something someone else built.
Kaelith’s eye twitched.
But again, he said nothing.
Because soon, the topic shifted to the Evil Cult, and all three of them had something to say about that.
"It was careless of you, Mauriss, to give someone the exact coordinates of the largest known cache of Origin Metal in the universe," Kaelith said, his voice quiet but firm, like silk hiding steel beneath its folds.
"If the Skyshard boy truly delivered it to the Cult... to Soron... then we may have just handed him the one thing that could tip the balance. With an Origin Blade in his hand, Soron will become a threat none of us are prepared to handle."
Helmuth let out a sharp snort, the sound dripping with derision as he cracked his knuckles lazily against his knee.
"Only you fear your brother, you spineless little father-killer. I don’t," he said, his voice rough like molten stone grinding through iron. "I’ll fight him any day of the year. Hell, I’ll fight him today."
Mauriss exhaled through his nose in amusement, the corner of his lips curling into a cold smile.
"Yes, we remember how that turned out the last time you tried." His tone dripped with mockery. "Your shattered axe. Had your severed limbs..... even had that vacant look on your face when you passed out from blood loss, twitching like a dying beast while Kaelith and I had to clean up your mess."
Helmuth twitched, the muscle in his neck bulging as he snapped his head toward Mauriss with such suddenness that even the unflinching deceiver instinctively recoiled half a step back.
The movement was subtle, but Kaelith caught it. Fear, raw and primal, flashed in Mauriss’s eyes for just an instant.
"That’s what I thought, Ocean Boy," Helmuth said with a sneer. "Even now, you both know you can’t take me on unless Kaelith starts swinging those little heirloom blades his daddy left behind. In this entire universe, I’ve only ever had one true rival, and that was the Timeless Assassin. None of his offspring, not you, and not Soron, ever came close to him."
His voice dropped an octave, resonating deep like thunder before a storm.
"But I’ll still fight Soron. Because apart from me, he’s the only other being who walks this universe with the power to split planets in half just by blinking too hard."
The moment those words left his mouth, both Kaelith and Mauriss flared their auras, the air around them shimmering violently as divine pressure spilled into the garden like a sudden flood.
Kaelith’s aura bled cold elegance and celestial fury, taking the form of spectral vines made of starlight, each leaf etched with runes older than written history.
The flowers around him bloomed with unnatural speed, then withered instantly under the strain of his rising energy, the petals curling into ash that floated upwards in a perfect spiral.
Mauriss’s energy was more chaotic, like a spiraling vortex of thunder and fire, spinning inwards as if trying to devour reality itself.
The water in the nearby ponds began boiling in reverse, droplets freezing as they rose midair, suspended by warped time and space.
Not to be outdone, Helmuth responded in kind, his divine essence erupting like a volcano cracking open the sky.
Black flames oozed from his pores as red lightning snapped through the air, burning the nearby silver-leaf trees to charcoal, while the ground beneath him cracked open, coughing up steam from deep within the planet’s mantle.
The Eternal Garden, once a sanctuary of balance and tranquility, now looked like the prelude to an apocalyptic storm.
Time wavered, space distorted, and for one fragile second, the laws of physics themselves seemed to bend under the strain of housing three gods who had no intention of yielding.
Kaelith’s nostrils flared as he raised a hand, his fingers twitching slightly.
"Enough," he said, voice sharpened into crystal and command. "Let us not turn my sanctuary into a battleground. If we are to fight, we will do it on a world none of us will miss."
The tension did not vanish, but it froze, solidifying into a stalemate as the three titans slowly reined their auras back in.
The Eternal Garden exhaled, leaves trembling, water trickling again, and the silver mist that had been driven away by the chaos now returned, cloaking the pavilion once more in serenity—however fragile.
Mauriss crossed his arms and smirked. Helmuth clicked his tongue and sat down, the heat still radiating from his body like a furnace, while Kaelith began brewing a batch of tea in silence, already dreading whatever was to come next.
Because despite the peace on the surface, a big war between the three of them was now only a few conversations away.