Fate: No One Plays the Villain Like I Do

In the north, a forest of black cedar stretched across the land.

Thorns and poisonous weeds grew in wild profusion. A few steps through the underbrush would bring the crunch of bleached animal and human bones beneath dead branches and leaves, dried blood soaking deep into the soil.

The towering cedars pierced the sky, their tangled, skewed branches blocking out nearly all light, leaving behind only dense darkness and the stench of blood.

Tracing the rivers of Mesopotamia upstream to their source led into the heart of the Cedar Forest, where a grand temple was embedded in the ochre mountain rock.

The lair of Magical Beasts—the Blood Temple!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

For some unknown reason, thunderous crashes echoed from deep within the temple, violent tremors rippling outward.

Under the force, rubble fell from both sides of the temple, and even the mountain itself began to tremble.

Nearby, thousands of Magical Beasts lay prone on the ground, uneasy and trembling as they looked fearfully toward the temple.

"Kingu! Kingu! Kingu, where are you?!"

Amid the thunderous impacts, a piercing and frenzied scream rang out. A monstrous figure, hundreds of meters tall, with purple hair cascading down her back, revealed the upper body of a voluptuous, beautiful woman and the lower body of a fearsome snake. Her shriek shook the temple.

"I'm here, Mother. You're awake?"

A soft, gender-neutral voice replied from within the darkness. It carried a calming magical aura. Emerging from the corridor was the green-haired beauty who had pursued Merlin and his companions.

Inside the Blood Temple, winding corridors twisted and overlapped like grotesque blood vessels birthed from the earth's depths.

The dried blood coating the walls had left behind purplish-red streaks, while strange, tumor-like egg-shaped embryos in the same color lined both sides.

As the green-haired beauty moved, a faint sound stirred the nearby beast eggs, causing them to twitch.

Inside the purplish-red membranes, the embryonic monsters thrashed desperately, trying to burst free and enter the world.

"Kingu, come to me, hurry…"

"I dreamt I was living on an island… with two shadows beside me. So familiar, yet… distant."

"They were speaking to me. Saying something, but… I can't remember."

Bang!

The goddess who bore the Magical Beasts raised her terrifying claws—each covered in purple-red scales—pressed them against her head, and slammed into the mountain wall. Her brow furrowed, and she moaned in agony.

"We… were cast out by humans, driven from the land, and left stranded on that empty island."

"Even so, we held no hatred. We only wanted to go on living, quietly, with nothing…"

"We don't have much to cherish, but even so, we wanted to protect this final place of refuge."

"Even if it meant giving up everything!"

"I curse humanity! I curse all that they are!"

"Ah! My head… it hurts…"

As the Goddess of Demonic Beasts cried out in pain, yellow wings spread from her back, and hundreds of monstrous snakes, formed from her shifting purple hair, writhed outward. Their vertical pupils dilated as they hissed, weaving through the air and releasing a soul-freezing aura of killing intent.

"It'll be alright, Mother"

"Just rest a bit longer…"

The green-haired beauty—Kingu—stepped forward, whispering gently. Raising a hand, he pointed toward the goddess's abdomen, and golden ripples shimmered through the air.

As he touched the purple-red serpentine lower half of the goddess, an ancient golden cup trembled faintly, resonating with him.

Gradually, the goddess's volatile emotions began to settle. Her sharp snake eyes slowly closed.

The hundreds of serpents extending from her back lost their menace, collapsing into deep slumber on the ground.

Seeing the goddess pacified and asleep, Kingu frowned and approached the massive crimson-black blood sea where her body lay submerged.

A great fissure ran through the mountain, the liquid within glowing scarlet.

The once-overflowing purple-red blood tide now poured out through a breach in the pool wall, the volume reduced to less than a third.

This blood was the temple's lifeblood, the mana that nurtured the Magical Beasts—and one of the vital sources of his Mother's divinity and power.

However, just one lapse had wasted more than half a year's worth of effort!

Now, the plan to besiege Uruk had to be halted.

Merlin! That damned Incubus!

Kingu clenched his teeth, murderous intent flashing in his eyes.

After calming himself slightly, the green-haired beauty leapt into the abyss. Passing through the thin veil of blood mist, he landed on a protruding rock and looked down.

The blood tide had receded by two-thirds, revealing the jagged cliffs on both sides of the valley. Countless red-black veins emerged, forming a rough outline as they densely pierced into the earth, the mountainsides, and the abyss itself, spreading to unknown depths.

They resembled the vast root systems of a banyan tree.

Tracing the veins back to their source and focusing his perception to the limit, he could just barely make out a purplish-red heart suspended between reality and void, shrouded by countless blood vessels, root nodules, and water channels.

With the pulsing of the blood tide, the heart rose and fell. A tremendous surge of Mana flowed through the network of veins, spreading in all directions.

Phew...

Kingu exhaled deeply, the crease between his brows easing slightly.

Thankfully, the Incubus had only evaporated part of the blood tide and hadn't discovered the real secret buried beneath the abyss.

Just then, a strange tremor stirred within him. An inexplicable palpitation, a loss of control over the moisture in his body, and the eerie sensation of blood flowing backward made his expression shift—he immediately retreated from the abyss.

The green-haired beauty cast a glance at the slumbering Goddess of Demonic Beasts, his expression darkening.

After the Demon God King Goetia resurrected her, his plan to awaken the calamity Tiamat and destroy the foundations of human civilization had gone awry.

The god Tiamat, hidden within the Sea of Imaginary Numbers, rejected his summons. Suppressing her instincts of "return" and "destruction," she instead sealed the Rift in the Sky.

With no other choice, as Goetia's collaborator, she had to settle for an alternative.

Later, at a crucial moment, both sides utilized the interconnectivity of the Sea of Imaginary Numbers to channel the conceptual information of another god from a different World Egg into this one.

Then, through Spirit Origin fusion, this Goddess of Demonic Beasts from another timeline took on the title of Mother of Origin and acquired a portion of Tiamat's authority.

But a counterfeit remains a counterfeit. Her Spirit Origin couldn't compare to that of the true Goddess of Beginning.

Even just the nerfed authority of the [Mother of All Beasts], which allowed her to mass-produce magical beasts, had already pushed the limits of her divinity.

To rely solely on this Mother to destroy Uruk would be nearly impossible.

Which left only one last method—

Use Tiamat's authority over creation and life to awaken the true horror that slumbers in this land!

O gods, I will give you a surprise!

Kingu gazed into the blood-lit abyss, a wicked smile curling at his lips.

...

(40 Chapters Ahead)

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