Sovereign of the Ashes

The Goddess of Luck, Tyvera...

From her appearance and aura which closely resembled Morvanya’s, Sein was able to determine her identity.

By all rights, the Goddess of Luck should have been Sein’s enemy.

Because of her, he had been hunted by multiple temples and churches across Faeloria not long ago.

To put it plainly, she was partly responsible for why he was now stranded here.

If this Goddess of Luck had not used her divine power to probe the Spider Queen, triggering a violent counterattack from a Magus World overlord, the God of Justice and the others would not have panicked and prematurely activated the Tablets of Fate—commencing the Avatar Crisis ahead of schedule.

The grudge between Tyvera and Morvanya was well-known across Faeloria.

Standing in Sein’s castle, Tyvera bore a dark bruise at the corner of her mouth—still laced with a lingering curse.

It was obvious who had delivered the blow.

Yet despite its force, it had not been fatal.

After all, Morvanya and Tyvera were blood sisters.

Morvanya might have resented constantly being overshadowed by her older sister, but not enough to want her dead.

Besides, Tyvera had not come to fight this time. She had come to forge an alliance with Sein and the Succubus Queen.

In Faeloria, the Goddess of Luck had always been a unique figure.

Blessed with a divine ability that could help her avoid harm, this intermediate deity clearly had her reasons for aligning with the Purgatory demons.

Tyvera had intended to sneak into Purgatory.

If not for Morvanya’s innate sense of her sister’s presence, even the Succubus Queen—Princess of Purgatory—might have missed her arrival.

Likewise, the deities of the Justice League remained completely unaware of Tyvera’s movements.

Ever since she vanished from the Justice Theocracy two hundred years ago, she had been completely off the radar.

Sein looked at the three goddesses before him and asked, “How can I help you?”

For most beings, interacting with deities would be an unimaginable honor, but for Sein, it had somehow become the norm.

It was never he who sought them out; it was always the goddesses who came to look for him.

The Succubus Queen and the Goddess of Doom remained silent at first. It was the Goddess of Luck who stepped forward.

She stared at Sein for a long moment before slowly nodding.

“It really is you—the future source of Faeloria’s greatest terror and heretical power,” she remarked.

As those words left her lips, Tyvera seemed visibly exhausted. Even her once-lustrous skin seemed to lose some of its firmness, sagging ever so slightly.

“What do you mean?” Sein frowned at the goddess before him.

The Succubus Queen and the Goddess of Doom kept quiet.

It was clear that this cryptic, prophecy-like statement from the Goddess of Luck was something they already knew—or at least expected.

Their silence made Sein lose interest in the conversation; he had no desire to play games with riddles and half-truths.

Just then, Azelia appeared at the perfect moment.

After instructing the fox maiden to take care of the guests, Sein turned around and returned to his laboratory.

Yuri was still in recovery, and Lou had suffered severe injuries in the last battle.

Only Azelia had not taken part in the god hunt, making her the one in the best condition among everyone in Sein’s castle.

Tyvera turned her gaze toward the fox maiden.

Perhaps wanting to leave a favorable impression on Sein, Tyvera casually raised a hand and bestowed a radiant beam of divine energy upon the fox maiden.

“Light of Blessings? Why don’t you just give it to Sein directly?” Morvanya whistled and teased her older sister.

“I would—if I had any power to spare. But right now, I’m running on empty,” Tyvera replied with a tired smile.

Light of Blessings was a unique divine ability possessed only by the Goddess of Luck.

From the perspective of the Magus World’s magical framework, it fell under the category of occult arts.

Whoever received the blessing would find their luck subtly enhanced for a period of time.

It was the kind of mysterious force that defied easy explanation, which was precisely why the Magus World had classified it as an occult art.

In contrast, the Goddess of Doom, Morvanya, had no ability to bless others. She could only curse.

Her notoriety in Faeloria and the animosity she’d drawn from other deities came from the fact that she had cursed many beings without clear justification.

In some cases, her curses had even proven effective against intermediate and greater deities alike.

Of course, both blessings and curses had their limits.

For instance, given Tyvera’s weakened state, she had no way to bestow a blessing upon Sein himself.

He was already close to reaching demigodhood, and his future was far too complex, too volatile, for divine blessings to take hold.

Azelia was a different case though. Still at Rank One, with a limited presence in the wider world and a life lived quietly at Sein’s side, she was an ideal recipient.

The cost to bless her was significantly lower.

Sein noticed the glowing halo surrounding Azelia and was intrigued by the occult ability activated through divine power.

“Come to my lab tonight,” he said to her through mental focus.

Azelia’s cheeks flushed instantly, her face turning as red as an apple—so charming one could hardly resist the urge to take a bite.

***

For now, the Goddess of Luck had taken up residence in Purgatory.

She seemed intent on keeping a low profile, refusing to reveal her whereabouts or declare allegiance to either the Chaotic or Evil factions to her temples.

Both the Succubus Queen and the Goddess of Doom seemed to have accepted this arrangement without objection.

To them, a formal declaration of allegiance from Tyvera at this stage offered very little benefits.

For the moment, life returned to a semblance of peace, and Sein’s condition gradually improved.

His various experiments progressed steadily—most notably his research into the God of First Light’s divine relic, which had greatly advanced his mastery of lumen elemental magic.

While Sein continued to ascend in power within Purgatory, the outside world remained in turmoil.

Though unprecedented in scale, this cycle of the Avatar Crisis had yet to reach the catastrophic heights many had anticipated before the war began.

For both the Wings of Nature and the Justice League, the greatest variable in this iteration of the crisis was the Purgatory demons.

Though they had amassed a truly massive and terrifying army along the outer edges of Purgatory, they remained behind their borders, making no move to cross over or join the war.

A hundred thousand years ago, it was the demons’ breakout from Purgatory and their attempt to subvert the laws of the Prime Materia Plane that had made the previous Avatar Crisis so violent and unforgettable.

Back then, the demons had rampaged across the plane, seeking to destroy the established order and hunt down gods to empower the demon kings.

Their ultimate goal had been to warp the laws of the world and usher in the rise of a demon great monarch.

It was that chaos that had made the last Avatar Crisis so fearsome in scale and consequence.

But now...

The demons remained in Purgatory.

In previous cycles, they had at least ventured beyond their borders to “stretch their legs”. This time, they seemed content to stay on the defensive.

The only real disturbance came some time ago, when the Succubus Queen ordered a handful of demon kings to stir up trouble near the borders just enough to distract the Justice League and the Wings of Nature.

Since then, the demons had been almost too “well-behaved”.

It felt deliberate... like they were holding something back or saving their strength.

What were they doing? Or rather, what were they waiting for?

Many Faelorian deities, who had braced themselves for an oncoming demon tide and the reignition of holy war, now found themselves puzzled.