A glint of realization flashed in Vivia's crimson eyes when Chaos intercepted her.
Over the years, questions have piled up in her heart, bothering her incessantly.
How did the rebels find out about Damien?
Why do people from different walks of life keep coming for him?
Why did three groups unite to go after them?
Today, after Chaos appeared before her, she found an answer to all of them.
"So you were the one… behind it all," Vivia said in a voice filled with rage.
Chaos smiled menacingly upon hearing her words. "That's right. Every misery and tragedy your family of three has gone through since Damien was born was caused by me, directly or indirectly."
Vivia's eyes flared up, shining more brightly. A deep-seated hatred for Chaos formed in her heart. Chaos felt an intense desire to add her gorgeous pair of eyes to its collection.
Chaos continued speaking to her.
"You see, I came to know about him when he was just a baby in a cradle."
The uncharted land that's known to house undead, the Great Forest that coexists with the Glorious Sun Empire, the several small worlds, and the dozens of fragmented worlds, each with its own unique fauna and flora, made up the entire map of the Far West Major Realm.
The soul of this major realm, its very consciousness, could see what was going on in the Great Forest and the three small worlds that had been subjugated by it. It just needed to focus on an area to see what was happening there. But it was so weak that it couldn't stop high-class entities like Chaos from doing the same.
Thus, when Damien was born, Chaos, who was scanning the northern region for a possible target to corrupt, sensed him.
"Because of a mere baby, I felt afraid for the second in my life. Your son made me feel threatened just by existing." A huge and plump tongue wagged out of the crack in its mouth before Chaos licked its lips while eying her. "For giving birth to someone like him, you should feel proud."
"When I first saw him, we were realms apart, but I felt threatened and haunted, and that feeling quickly evolved into fear as I continued looking at him. That confused me to no end." Chaos recalled what happened that day and felt pathetic. "Before coming across him, I feared only the creator and ruler of the uncharted land, Death. He was the first being I failed to comprehend after living for 200 years, and he was the first True Being I had come across at that time. Because he had the power to crush me to death effortlessly, I feared him. But your son… a powerless baby, was enough to evoke a shameful memory buried deep within my subconsciousness. I really wanted to kill him. But I stopped myself. That's quickly going to become the best decision in my life."
Chaos laughed hysterically.
Vivia raised her hands to block her ears as its laughers were like sharp knives to her ears.
She managed to offset a majority of the damage that way, but her eardrums exploded, and her brain started to turn to must.
Blood dripped out of her nostrils, and the blood trickling out of her ears stained her milky hands that, suddenly released a blue glow.
Water, containing traces of divinity and intense healing power, seeped out of her palm and swirled into her ear canals, healing her destroyed eardrums before rending the damage to her brain caused by Chaos ineffective.
"So... just because your pride was hurt, you played with his life. You monster!" Vivia's eyes were hot. She was angry at Chaos but even more so disappointed in herself because, as a mother, she failed to protect her only child from danger.
If only she knew Chaos was behind this, she would have stopped it from eyeing her son, even if it meant sacrificing herself. However, they were on different power levels. She was clearly not its match. It was so strong that she didn't even sense when it started eyeing her son, and it did so without being physically in the same area as them.
"You think too lowly of me." Chaos was a ruthless tyrant. If someone hurts Chaos's pride, it will kill them before killing their family, relatives, friends, affiliates, and even casual acquaintances. It would not stop until all signs of them are eradicated from the world. "There's much more to it than you think."
"Oh, Vivia, I spared Damien but made him experience one misery after another for a reason much greater than you speculated." Just seeing the defeated look on her face made it grin from ear to ear. "Ever since I met Death, I have been trying to reach the same stage as him. More than 800 years have passed, but I am nowhere near his power level. Just when I was about to go crazy finding a way to become his equal, I finally found a way."
Vivia felt shocked, hearing its words, and her eyes widened. "It's my son?"
"Indeed." Chaos exclaimed. "He's the greatest, and the only ingredient one can use to become a True being. When I tried to kill him, I felt that I was in the presence of Death, and if I didn't stop, I would really die. As I came close to killing him, that feeling intensified. I complimented why I was feeling afraid of him and why I felt like I would die if I tried to kill him. It was just a lousy attempt to fool myself. The second I laid my eyes on him, I already knew in my heart that he could crush me to death as effortlessly as Death."
A shocked look appeared on Vivia's face.
"That can't be."
"No, it's as you think. He had the strength to rival a True Being when he was just a baby. I was just like you when I came to that decision. That didn't make any sense to me, either. I struggled for a thousand years, caused endless mayhem, and spread Chaos throughout the realm, but I didn't even touch that realm, so why was he born with it? Why was the world so unfair?"
Chaos flared up.
Bam!
The water bullets that Vivia created to shoot it down exploded in mid-air before they could reach anywhere close to it.
"You are quite eager to enter hell, ain't ya?" Chaos grinned at her.
Just then, chaotic energy pressure acted on her, slowly destroying her clothes and immobilizing her. Any other person would be immobilized under pressure so immense that it was focused on someone else but cracking the land and the mountains; however, it only slowed her down. She was no ordinary being, after all.
"I will send you there after you experience despair."
Suddenly, dark spots appeared in the sky all around her. She felt endangered but had nowhere to run to. She was trapped in the middle of them. Red-colored tentacles came out of them. They were made of Chaotic Force. All of them had a mouth at their end but no eyes, and they bit into her.
"Kuah!" She gasped as the block-like teeth sank into her skin but failed to tear her apart. The tentacle monsters were strong but not strong enough to tear deep into the flesh of a deity like her.
'It's too strong.'
Vivia felt powerless in its presence.
She couldn't leave it in the dust, nor could she harm it.
Her son was waiting for her to help him. But she couldn't even get through it. She felt absolutely pathetic.
Chaos didn't expect it would be able to subdue her so easily with just an avatar of itself. Guess it had underestimated itself too much.
"After analyzing him from an entire world away for countless days, I discovered his terrifying hidden potential. To explain it simply, he was born with the power to kill Gods, but because he had a mortal body, he wasn't able to exhibit it. But that power would show itself if he lost it, destroying everything in its wake. Terrifying, isn't it? I sweated buckets when I realized how close I was to dying. If I had killed him, I would have died then and there." Chaos opened its mouth. "Someone like him doesn't deserve it. It should belong to it. Naturally, I couldn't take it by force. So that day, I decided to corrupt him. Once he accepts my kiss and enters my embrace, all of him will be inseparable from all of me! He will become the best ingredient to me. I will use him to become a True being!"
Its words were disgusting enough to make one puke.
Vivia's heart shook when she realized what it wanted to do, and she felt disgusted and enraged.
"I will never allow you to eat him."
Her divinity powered up, and the monsters biting her exploded into smithereens.
The next moment, a blinding shine released from her body, destroying the dark spots in the air.
"You must be ready to die since you are using your divinity so recklessly." Chaos taunted her, and a tick appeared on her forehead.
The angrier she was, the better it felt. It lived off people's negative emotions. The negativity in the world was its food. It helped it grow stronger and become the embodiment of perfection. The negative emotions of strong beings were its greatest nourishment. That's one of the reasons why it was being so patient with her. It wouldn't have bothered revealing its master plan to her if it wasn't going to benefit from it.
"No, I am ready to kill!" Vivia retorted.
