Chapter 356: I Rejected My First Job Offer [II]

I was furiously massaging my eyebrows at this point. "And what’s the second problem?"

Asmodeus’ smile thinned, just a little.

"The second problem," he began slowly, "is that the Spirit King can’t tell who carries which shard."

"You

just

said fate marked them."

"Yes. Marked. Not labeled." He folded his hands more tightly on the table, Jake’s long fingers interlacing with deliberate calm. "The shards of the

Tenth Card

do not manifest as abilities. They do not crystallize into Origin Cards. They do not announce themselves to the world. They are silent."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," he said evenly, "there is no way to look at someone and say,

ah, that one carries a piece of the reset button

. To him, every Chosen One looks like an ordinary mortal wrapped in inconvenient destiny. The only way to know who the real one is... is when they rise to fulfill their fate."

"Which is?"

"To oppose him," Asmodeus replied. "Or at least try to, before dying in their last stand while saving the world."

I nearly groaned and dragged a hand down my face. "So he can’t surgically remove the problem."

"Uh-huh," Asmodeus nodded. "He can only burn the whole forest down and hope the right tree falls. Earth is the last place where Essence still flows. Which means it is the last place where the fragments of the

Tenth Card

can still exist. Every other world like this one has already been... harvested."

I exhaled out a humorless breath. "So let me get this straight."

He waited.

"The universe is being invaded because a godlike being killed some very old dudes, broke a reset button, and now has to hunt down a bunch of poor idiots on Earth who don’t even know they’re carrying pieces of a divine card game inside their souls."

Asmodeus tilted his head thoughtfully. "When you phrase it like that... it does sound inefficient."

I stared at him. "And you expect me to join the side trying to finish that job."

He didn’t deny it. "That’s right. Join us, and you won’t have to be one of the trees that falls."

My fingers curled around the edge of the table. "And what makes you think I’d ever join an eldritch suicide cult? It’d be one thing if he wanted to overthrow the gods and rule afterward, but that lunatic wants to end all of existence. Are you all insane? Seriously!"

Asmodeus’ lips twitched upward.

I didn’t like the way he was smiling.

He was smiling like I was a child who didn’t yet understand how vast the

bigger picture

was. "You wouldn’t say that if you knew the real purpose of existence. Of all of reality. If you knew why the

Architects

created everything and what role every creature was meant to play."

I scowled hard. "Fine. Enlighten me. Start with who these

Architects

even are."

Asmodeus looked thoughtful for a second.

But just when I believed he’d answer me, he waved in a dismissive gesture. "No, no. I think it’ll be far more entertaining when you discover that on your own. I only wish to be there to watch you spiral into an existential crisis the way I once did after learning the truth."

I kept my breathing steady.

In and out. In and out.

This guy was really getting under my skin.

Nothing new there.

"Regardless," I snarled, "I’m deeply thankful — well, not really — for this generous job offer. But I think I’ll pass on working for a cosmic psychopath. And besides, if fate is siding with the Chosen Ones, then I’ll side with them too. I like betting on winners."

The Demon Prince beamed at that, his face slowly beginning to resemble his own more than Jake’s. "Oh, you silly boy. When did I ever say they were the only ones favored by fate?"

...W-What?

I froze.

I didn’t like the teasing inflection in his voice either. "Wait— no, what?! But if the gods themselves support fate, then why would—"

Asmodeus cut me off before I could go on.

"Because fate is not their will. It is a system. An algorithm. It exists to keep things in order. To extract the maximum efficiency from reality. It is designed so people can suffer and cry, rejoice and laugh, despair and recover. It is both law and chain — a mechanism that forces souls to move, to grow, to break and reform. Unfortunately for you, that algorithm has already decided something." His voice lowered. "It has decided that the Spirit King will win. And the gods will lose."

I was still struggling to process that by the time he leaned closer.

"You see, Samael, I want to recruit you because you would make a perfect vessel for the Tenth Demon Prince," he gestured casually at himself — or rather, at Jake’s body. "Far better than my current host. It is not easy to find someone whose fate has collapsed, after all. Most people die when destiny says they should die, you know? But with or without you, we will

still

win. Because it is written in the stars themselves."

My head was actually spinning now.

"Tenth?!" I blurted. "What the hell do you mean the

Tenth

Demon Prince?! There are only supposed to be nine! The Queen of Rot is supposed to be the final piece of whatever nightmare puzzle the Spirit King is building!"

Asmodeus bobbed his head, still smiling. "Originally, yes. The Tenth Demon Prince was merely a contingency. A vacant throne in the hierarchy of the

Defiled

, reserved for the one being who could exist outside the algorithm of the stars."

He rose to his feet.

As he did, the Academy cafeteria began to unravel.

The polished marble floor dissolved into a swirling nebula of black ink. The ceiling above tore open, revealing a sky where dense constellations were being snuffed out one by one, like candles dying in a windstorm.

"The Nine Princes represent the completion of the Spirit King’s eternal army," Asmodeus said lightly. "I govern desire, which gives direction. Direction births fate, which Vaeghar can see. In time, when the Queen of Rot is born, she will be able to sever the strings of fate. But all of us still exist

within

its boundaries. That is why we could never oppose the High Gods directly. The Tenth, however... is a position meant for someone who has no fate left to manipulate anymore."

He stepped across the vanishing floor and stopped directly in front of me, his imposing silhouette blotting out the dying stars above.

He was no longer wearing Jake’s body.

Yet that same disturbing grin stretched across his now inhuman face as he continued, "You fit that role perfectly. Your Loom has collapsed. You exist outside it now. You have no idea what the Supreme One could make of you, how powerful he could shape you to be. Especially when you are already a Shade of one of the two Primordials."

Then he tilted his head. "But don’t misunderstand. You are

not

my only option. I have another way to remove my current host from the Loom as well. Ironically, by changing your own fate, you also altered his. I suspect he is now walking the path that was meant for you, fulfilling a destiny that was supposed to be yours. I could work with that... eventually. But it would take time. So I truly hope you reconsider. It would save me a lot of trouble."

I stood there in the collapsing remains of the world, darkness swallowing everything around us.

Then I inhaled sharply and breathed out a single word. "No."

"...Excuse me?"

"No."

Asmodeus raised an eyebrow. "Why, Samael? Why such stubbornness? I am offering you survival. The only reason you fight this war is because you don’t want to die with the rest of the world. I’m telling you that you won’t. You’ll be spared. You’ll—"

"Become a monster," I finished for him.

His lips pressed thin. "You would not lose your consciousness. You would still be you—"

"Did you know," I cut him off, "there was once a man whose ship was crushed by ice, and his crew was stranded for hundreds of days in Antarctica? He crossed nearly a thousand miles of the world’s deadliest ocean in a lifeboat just to find help. And he didn’t lose a single man."

The Seventh Demon Prince squinted. "What are you talking about?"

I

was the one ignoring him now. "There was once a war where a few hundred hussars stood against thousands of invaders. When they ran out of bullets, they picked up the arrows fired at them and shot them back. And then there was a teenage girl who was shot in the head simply for wanting to go to school. She stood up afterward and became a voice that an entire regime couldn’t silence."

Asmodeus went quiet.

"We are a species built on spite, you dumb demon!" I snapped. "We survived ice ages, volcanic winters, and our own endless capacity for self-destruction. We are collections of billion-to-one chances that somehow paid off. Maybe fate guided us. Maybe the gods did. But we had free will to give up at any moment — and we didn’t. Even when our spirits were crushed, we kept standing."

"So—"

"No," I shouted, sharper this time. "I will not join you. Because there is nothing more despicable than a creature that betrays its own species. What you call stubbornness...

I

call inheritance."

Asmodeus looked genuinely taken aback when I threw his own words back at him.

But that didn’t stop me.

"I don’t care if fate says we lose. I don’t care if the stars already wrote the ending. If my choice is to die as a human or live as a puppet for your so-called Supreme One, then I choose the dirt. This is my answer to your offer, Asmodeus. As long as I stand on Earth, humanity

will

not

fall. Bring your king. Bring your army. Do whatever the hell you want. But you will have to go through me to take even a single inch of my world."

By the time I was done, the Demon Prince of Temptations didn’t look angry.

He looked... disappointed.

"...Wow," he murmured. "Deplorable, you say? How foolish. I didn’t take you for the heroic type. I really didn’t. I thought you were more practical than that."

The silence that followed was absolute.

For a moment, the swirling nebula slowed down, and even the stars stopped flickering out.

Asmodeus stood still with his jaw slightly open, before his lips curled upward again. "I am truly disheartened. But... you finally uttered my name."