Chapter 1198 – An Extremely Perplexing Situation

For a moment, things were calm once more. Jake stood within the vessel, his eyes still burning as he’d forced himself to witness the scene of Oras’ arrival, despite it searing his brain to do so. Looking around the vessel, he saw that Dina, Sylphie, and the Forest King were all unconscious, with the Sword Saint still aware as two trails of blood dripped from his eyes and onto his robe. He wasn’t doing that well and had clearly strained himself significantly.

Of the five of them, Jake was definitely in the best state, likely because he had encountered Oras a few times before, but definitely also partly due to his Bloodline allowing him to fully withstand the aura of the Void God, even if it still creeped him out.

The Void God in question had already begun to retract his aura, the swimming sea of eyes receding like the tide as his presence nevertheless remained, Oras showing no signs of fully leaving just yet.

Jake felt Villy approach and would be there shortly alongside many other pinnacle gods, Jake reckoned. Hopefully, when they did, everyone could get some answers.

Because right now, little made sense to Jake. He had no idea why this ambush had happened in the first place, what they truly wanted of him, and if the words the woman had said were even true. Her final sentence about it never having been the plan to kill him especially messed with Jake.

It made a lot of his prior assumptions wrong. Of course, it was entirely possible she had only said it to mess with him, but why would she do that in the first place? Could a god of that level truly be so damn petty?

As Jake was thinking, Artemis arrived at the vessel. When Jake saw her, he had to hide his shock at her state. While her body was whole, several sections of it were oddly discolored, and a multitude of wounds could be seen everywhere as she clearly hadn’t been on the winning side of the battle.

She threw Jake a brief look filled with relief before turning her attention to the Void God. Cupping her hands and bowing, she spoke with a deep sense of respect, only surpassed by when she spoke to Yggdrasil.

“This one greets Oras the All-Seeing and thanks him for saving my life,” Artemis said, seemingly not daring to raise her gaze and look directly at the Void God.

“I greet thee, companion of He Who Hunts,” the Void God said, not looking inclined to say anything more. Jake wasn’t sure if it was a diss to simply refer to Artemis as Jake’s companion, but the Godqueen didn’t seem offended as she merely bowed again before turning towards Jake.

“I don’t know what you did… but good job,” Artemis said, forcing a smile.

“You did say you’d never met a Void God before, so I reckoned I’d let you have the experience,” Jake said, trying to lighten the mood despite the seriousness of the situation.

Artemis kept smiling as she looked inside the vessel through the still-open hatch. “Is everyone okay?”

“As well as can be,” Jake sighed.

“I believe we will all need an extended period of rest to address any long-term mental effects,” the Sword Saint answered, already looking a lot better now than before.

“Alright,” Artemis nodded, but just as she looked like she was about to say more, the first of many gods made their arrival.

A dark green sheen overtook one entire side of the void as Jake briefly saw the image of an astonishingly gigantic snake slithering through the nothingness before the aura retracted, revealing the humanoid body of the Malefic Viper.

An instant later, he stood in front of Jake and gave him a good look as the god spoke.

“What the fuck happened?”

His voice was full of lingering bloodlust that made even Jake feel cautious, but he kept his cool and answered.

“We were ambushed,” Jake shook his head. “I don’t know how, I’m not exactly sure why either, but they evidently wanted me to do something for them, not caring about anyone else besides me.”

Jake gave a few more details about what had gone down, including the actions he’d taken to try to get them out of it. He hoped to get everything out before they were joined by more gods, so he spoke extra quickly.

The Viper nodded, having calmed down a fair deal as he looked toward the Void God.

“Thanks for the help, I owe you one for sure,” the Malefic Viper said, giving the eldritch being a small nod.

“Denied. Favor merely returned, scales tipped towards balance,” the Void God Said, remaining quite mysterious.

Villy didn’t seem to completely get the Void God either, as he nevertheless nodded. “Thank you either way.”

“Keeper of Lost Knowledge, gratefulness acknowledged, yet unnecessary. Between He Who Hunts and I,” Oras said, actually clarifying matters a bit as Jake frowned. He was about to look at Oras but stopped himself as he spoke while looking down.

“You make it sound as if you owed me a favor?” Jake asked. “I helped deliver things to Arnold, sure, but I’m pretty sure you already paid me back for that.”

“Yes,” Oras simply said, not seeming like he had any intentions of elaborating.

The Viper looked up skeptically before shaking his head and surveying the area. He waved his hand and instantly frowned. “What the…”

Energy gathered, pulsing outwards from the Viper as he tried to do something. Reality seemed to vibrate and shiver for a moment, and Jake saw the void shift all around them, except in one specific area:

Right where the gods had imploded themselves.

Frowning deeply, the Viper did a quick teleport and appeared right in front of the spherical area. His frown only deepened before he looked at Jake.

“You said the god took out some kind of circular metal object that looked like a coin?”

“Yeah,” Jake confirmed.

“Any more details?”

Jake considered quickly as he tried to summon a projection of what he’d seen. The Viper studied it closely for a few moments before shaking his head. “Not very useful.”

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“Any idea what that thing was?” Jake questioned.

“No, not really,” Villy sighed. “All I can tell you is that it wasn’t anything simple.”

Turning towards Artemis, the Viper looked her over quickly before summoning a bottle in his hand and tossing it towards her. “Drink that and tell me what you say. Also, did you only battle avatars or had any of them actually come with their real bodies?”

Artemis inspected the bottle for a second before drinking it. Right as she did, her body began to visibly heal, and the lingering energies in her wounds were fought off in an instant.

“I thank the Malefic One for his continued generosity,” Artemis bowed, likely wanting to also bring up the gift the Viper had provided that allowed her to reach her current level, but she understood this wasn’t the time for that. “And no, I believe only two of the gods involved were avatars, both of which were the ones surpassing the realm of Godqueen.”

“Now this is all just getting more and more perplexing,” the Malefic Viper muttered. However, before he could say more, they were interrupted by more arrivals.