The Lord of the Flies looked like a whipped man. "That is correct…"
In fact, it wasn't just Beelzebub, but all the True Lords of Faust who had realized this.
None of them harbored any hopes that the wrath of the Goddess would be something any of them could ever hope to withstand.
The appearance of another Agent of Vena felt like a fair warning.
Otherwise, Thanatos with all his powers would have never exchanged the First Ressurection Stone with Darius for some mere trinkets.
At his level of powers, those so-called 'treasures' Darius had presented in exchange could have either been created by him with a flip of his hand or acquired via other means.
Heck, Darius had been able to acquire them even before founding Safemoon, much less Thanatos.
So then why did Thanatos compromise and allowed Darius to have his way?
It was not as if he was some benevolent saint or a kind-hearted old man who enjoyed seeing the next generation prosper.
No, he was the Titan God of Death, a being feared by even the likes of Beelzebub, and for good reason. The law he controlled was one of the absolutes of reality.
Why hadn't Thanatos declared death upon Darius casually for lusting over the First Resurrection Stone, an item that he had taken and nurtured for so long?
Well, it was quite simple really. Like the other True Lords, Thanatos knew about Vena.
He also knew about Vena's Agents, and it was even through him that Darius came to learn of the term.
Why were these agents sent to Faust occasionally? For what purpose?
This was a question that plagued the Gods who did not know of Vena. They only knew that foreign entities were entering their world periodically.
It was only after the coming and going of many that they the Gods had been able to find a sort of pattern, which eventually allowed them to capture Sino D'Mara and end his path before it even began, whether by accident or intention was not known to Darius.
Darius was merely the newest Agent of Vena. From his arrival, it had become clear to Thanatos that he had been tasked with claiming the First Resurrection Stone.
Thanatos had seen all this from Darius' mind and the actions that had occurred, including his scheme.
From his point of view, Vena was simply reclaiming what was originally hers, so how could he dare to keep it?
Since Darius had offered a trade, he had acceded as a goodwill to the Goddess.
The goddess wanted him to suffer for her amusement, but she also had a purpose in grooming him. Anyone with above room temperature IQ could realize this and Darius himself did so recently.
So as long as he didn't die, he could be put through any difficulty.
Thanatos, being the wily old fox he was, did two things to that end.
He seized Darius' two trump cards, the vampire boys Mikey and Joneson, then tossed him into the Journeyman band to rush out on his own without shortcuts.
Thanatos reasoned that he wouldn't die from it, but he would certainly suffer for it. The perfect sort of amusement for the Goddess, no?
Darius did not think like this before, but it had only occurred to him now that he had almost all the information Faust had to offer, as well as due to the kind of point he was trying to arrive at with Beelzebub.
"Hoho, the Insects were suddenly empowered as a whole and send out to conquer the lands. Heck, even some True Lords had fallen by your kin, devoured to further fuel your race's growth. Nothing could stop you all... until a few powerful True Lords intervened." Darius stated with a straight stance.
"What saved Faust was the intervention of five special True Lords. The Ancestor Dragon of Unyris, The Jade Emperor of Pan, The Storm King of Houto, The Ice Lord of Kiel and the Titan God of Death from Fallon."
Darius began listing their names with each finger. "Yuli'ann Castoro, Yuanshi Tianzun, Susanoo, Jack Frost, and Thanatos."
Every name felt like a bucket of cold water being poured atop poor Beelzebub. These were the five names that terrified him the most, as the moment those five had appeared on the battlefield, it had symbolized the end of their glorious invasion.
Thanatos had sent his endless undead troops into the fray. They had acted as a perfect counter to the Insect's nature. An Insect would kill its foes and devour the enemy, but with the Titan God present, they had all been turned into undead the moment they died.
Eating the undead warriors was the same as consuming poison for them. This was because they were reanimated using Thanatos' essence laws, so the Insects that ate his undead would die, only to reanimate and attack their brethren.
As the insects ate others to grow, Thanatos' undead also ate the Insects to grow. This was a clash of two of the most feared forces in all of human knowledge and imagination, an undead force versus an insect force.
Both were doomsday calamities, where just being alive made you the losing party as your enemy would grow while you would weaken in perpetuity. Pitting against each other, it was an interesting stalemate.
Then there was Jack Frost with his silvery-white hair, blue windbreaker, and signature curved staff that brought ice wherever he went. It didn't matter how strong you were as an Insect, once you were frozen stiff, you could not eat your way out of such a situation.
Susanoo was a young man in his late twenties with a messy beard, a gourd of wine, and a necklace of magatama symbols. He wielded a pitch-black sword made from the tail of Orochi, which was able to cut any Insect in half and destroy their soul.
Yuanshi Tianzun was an old man with emperor robes and a long white beard. He looked like a gentle and wizened old man who anyone would love to take as their master to teach them the ways of cultivation.
