The Anomaly's Path

”Because I am already dead.”

I froze.

The silence in the room stretched so heavy that even the crackle of the fireplace seemed to fade. My jaw went slack. My mind stalled out, reeling as the sheer impossibility of her words crashed against everything I knew.

”What...?” I choked out, a sudden, sharp shock cutting through my composure. ”What did you just say?”

”I am dead,” she repeated smoothly, completely unbothered by the revelation. ”Faded away. The world just hasn’t realized it yet.”

”That’s... that’s impossible,” I stammered, my head shaking almost on its own. ”You’re a goddess! Gods don’t just—”

My throat burned, the rest of the words dying in my chest. I forced my mouth shut, my mind turning inward as I pulled up every piece of lore I had memorized from my past life.

No... even in the deepest lore of the game, there was never a single mention of the Moon Goddess dying.

In The Hero Chronicles, the main gods were constants. They were unbeatable, eternal beings woven into the very fabric of the world’s mana.

The Great War, the grand disaster, the fall of ancient kingdoms, history recorded endless bloodshed, but rarely a death of a supreme god. If a being on her level could fade... then the entire foundation of this world’s history was built on a lie.

If a goddess was dead... who the hell could have killed her?

A cold, creeping dread slithered down my spine, settling heavy in my gut.

The Abyss King...? Did she fall during the war against the Abyss? Was that monster powerful enough to slay a god and erase the proof from history?

The Moon Goddess watched my dramatic reaction, a faint, amused smirk touching her lips.

”You truly look like you’ve seen a ghost, Leo,” she chuckled softly. ”Is it really so shocking to learn that a god can die? You mortals always put us on such ridiculously high pedestals, believing we are invincible, eternal, unyielding. But we are subject to the same basic laws of the universe. When our origin burns out, we fade.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, her crimson eyes locking onto mine with an intense, searching gaze.

”Tell me, Leo...” the Moon Goddess murmured, her voice carrying a haunting, ancient resonance that stirred the silver mist hanging at the edges of the room. ”What do you actually know about the gods of this world?”

Her crimson eyes held mine with an unblinking, heavy clarity. The question hung in the air between us, quiet and lethal, cutting straight through the comfortable illusion of the dining chamber. I didn’t answer right away.

I forced my posture to stay relaxed, leaning back against the seat, though my fingers dug tightly into the armrests.

What do I know about the gods...?

A dark, bitter laugh almost escaped my throat, but I caught it behind my teeth.

In my past life, back when Aetheris was just a game called The Hero Chronicles, the gods were nothing more than grand background lore.

They were majestic statues, granting buffs, handing out divine artifacts, and crowning chosen heroes to fight the Abyss King. I had spent thousands of hours studying their pantheons, reading their ancient scriptures, and tracing their holy bloodlines.

But after transmigrating here, after feeling the bitter cold of this world and watching people bleed... my view of those ”benevolent” beings was utterly broken. I didn’t worship them. I didn’t pray to them. And I damn sure didn’t trust them.

To me, the gods were nothing more than arrogant, distant parasites playing a big game of chess with mortal lives, demanding complete obedience and blind worship while treating their followers like disposable fuel.

Take Arthur, for instance.

The Goddess of Light chose him as her golden champion, yet she didn’t lift a finger when his home was destroyed. She let Oakhaven burn to ash, waiting until he was completely broken before handing him power, twisting his pain into a blade for her holy war.

Then think about Seris. The Moon Goddess claimed her from birth, yet left her in a cold, lonely life inside the academy, burdening her with a painful divine seal while offering no guidance, leaving her to carry the crushing weight of her holy title all alone.

Or Elisabeth. The Eternal Night chose her to carry the heavy legacy of her house, piling impossible expectations on her shoulders and forcing her to walk a path carved through blood and brutal sacrifice, all while the divine stayed completely silent.

Even Amelia wasn’t spared. The Spirit Queen chose her, only to leave her drowning in quiet, suffocating guilt.

The gods didn’t save people. They used them. They sat above the clouds, silent and unyielding, watching mortals bleed for their grand design. I had no patience for them, no respect for their titles, and zero fear of their holy wrath.

If a god ever stood in my way, I wouldn’t hesitate to cut them down. I was the anomaly, the glitch in the fate who was supposed to die in the trial, the one carrying a fragment of the Forgotten One in his very soul.

”...I know enough,” I said, my voice dropping into a flat, cold tone. ”I know you sit high above everyone, taking everything and giving nothing back. I know you treat mortal lives like disposable pieces on a board. And I know you don’t give a damn about the people who bleed in your names.”

The Moon Goddess didn’t look offended.

She didn’t strike me down with some divine thunder or flex her overwhelming aura to crush me. Instead, her lips curved into a quiet, bittersweet smile.

”A harsh judgment, isn’t it?” she murmured softly, taking a slow, measured sip from her glass.

”Yet... you aren’t entirely wrong. But you aren’t completely right, either. We demanded faith, built grand temples, and allowed mortals to sing hymns to our glory. We let you believe we were untouchable, flawless beings who created the heavens and the earth.”

She set the glass down, her crimson eyes distant, as if staring back through millennia of forgotten history.

”But that was always our greatest lie, Leo,” she continued, her tone eerily serene. ”We were never flawless. We were never divine constants. Gods were never meant to be immortal... because we were never gods to begin with.”

My breath hitched in my throat.

The silence that followed was so suffocating that I could hear the loud, heavy thudding of my own pulse in my ears.

What...?

”What did you just say?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

”We were once just like you,” the Moon Goddess said simply, resting her chin on her hand. ”Mortals... beings of flesh, blood, and ambition who climbed to the apex of power, touched the origin of the world, and claimed the titles of divinity. We built a hierarchy to keep order, draped ourselves in divine authority, and let the world worship us. But a false foundation can only hold for so long.”

My mind stalled, reeling from the sheer absurdity of her words.

Gods... were once mortal?

It blew past everything I had memorized from The Hero Chronicles. It shattered the very history of Aetheris. If the divine gods were made up of ascended mortals who had reached the peak, then the prayers, the holy wars, the centuries of divine worship... it was all a tragic joke.

They weren’t supreme creators. They were just powerful tyrants who had managed to lock the door behind them.

If the people of Aetheris ever learned the truth, that the deities they died for were just glorified ascendants who eventually burned out, the entire social and religious structure of the world would collapse in an instant...

I let out a harsh, quiet exhale, a heavy weight of disgust settling in my chest. ”...So that’s it. You all climbed to the top of the mountain, kicked the ladder away, and built a grand religion to make sure no one ever questioned your authority. A perfect, self-serving dictatorship.”

The Moon Goddess remained calm, her crimson eyes softening with a deep, ancient weariness that pulled at her expression.

”It is easy to cast us as simple villains in your mind, Leo,” she said softly, her voice entirely stripped of grand divine authority.

”And perhaps, over time, many of us became exactly that. Power warps perspective. When you touch the origin of the world, mortal ambition doesn’t vanish, it expands. We realized too late that ascending to godhood doesn’t cleanse a soul of its flaws. Greed, pride, paranoia... they simply grow larger, magnified by the scale of divine power.”

She traced the rim of her glass with a pale finger, her eyes fixed on the liquid within.

”When you hold that kind of power in your hands, the lives of ordinary people begin to look agonizingly brief... like fleeting sparks that fade before they can even burn. But do not mistake survival for sheer malice. Not all of the gods reveled in blind worship. Some of us fought to maintain order because the alternative was lawless chaos. Some built sanctuaries. Some genuinely tried to guide the realm through its darkest hours.”

Her gaze drifted, lost in a memory thousands of years old.

”Yet no matter how noble the intent, greed and fear always found a way back in. We were trying to hold an infinite power within finite, mortal souls, terrified of losing what we had bled to reach. We weren’t divine creators, Leo... we were just desperate, flawed ascendants trying to plug the holes in a sinking ship.”

My jaw tightened. The anger in my chest didn’t fade, but it shifted, solidifying into a cold, heavy calculation. If the gods were nothing more than desperate, bloated ascendants playing a grand game of pretend... then the entire foundation of reality was broken.

My mind raced back to the suffocating dark of the Path Trial, to that nameless, crushing existence that had almost unraveled my soul with a single, passive touch.

The Oldest Watcher. The Forgotten One.

If these so-called gods were just ambitious mortals who climbed up the mountain and stole the stage, where did the Watchers fit into the puzzle? Were they the true, original masters of Aetheris before the gods rewrote history?

Or were they something far worse, watching from beyond the boundary while mortals played with power they couldn’t understand?

The Moon Goddess herself had been forced into a pact with the Forgotten One. A dead god, bound by rules set by an ancient watcher. Even at the height of her divine power, she had been nothing more than a piece moving across a far grander board.

My gaze locked onto her. I didn’t break the silence with useless demands or emotional outbursts. I just let the cold, ugly truth sink into my bones.

If the divine beings consisted of ascendants who pushed past mortal limits... where did the Abyss fit into all of this? Was it another ascendant that went wrong? Was it a power from beyond the boundary?