Global Gods : Skill-Resonance Awakened Chapter 369: Ch 369 : Theories

BAM.

A terrifying force slammed the massive obsidian doors of the meeting hall back against the walls.

Staggering into the chamber came a senior Demon Messenger, typically renowned for his icy calm and piercing mind.

His scales, formerly a rich, gleaming crimson, had dulled to a ghastly pale gray. He dropped to his knees, claws raking the stone floor as though grasping for solidity in a world turned unreal.

"Lords! Terrible news! The unthinkable... it occurred!"

The Demon Lords remained still. Yet they unleashed a unified surge of oppressive aura across the room, a crushing energy blast that forcibly steadied the messenger’s racing heart.

"Speak," Deimos ordered, his tone a deep rumble echoing through the messenger’s very bones.

"Lord... the Multiverse of Gods... and the Realm of Advancement... they’ve vanished!" the messenger cried out, words spilling in a frantic torrent.

"Our scouts lingered just beyond the multiverse of Gods’ barrier, observing the golden shield like always. Suddenly, space started fracturing. Not like opening a gate, but shattering like brittle glass struck by a hammer. We bolted, escaping the fissures... but they pursued, devouring the Gods abandoned in their wake!"

He panted heavily, eyes bulging and lifeless. "Then... in one instant, without tremor or noise... The multiverse of Gods blinked out of existence. No remnants. No lingering spatial ripples. Just a barren, wailing void where it stood! And the demon demigods overseeing the realm of advancement reported its sudden absence too."

The Demon Lords shot upright, their auras colliding in a wild tempest of dark lightning and crimson fog.

"Lom!" Maledictus snarled, her hood billowing outward. "The traitor has struck at last! He aims to drag the whole Pantheon into the Pearl to boost his strength!"

"No," Deimos replied, eyes slitting coldly as he fixed on the spot where the Multiverse of Gods had existed.

"Impossible. Even the Pearl of Calamity couldn’t consume a Multiverse in one breath without ripping reality apart. And Cosmos? Adam? Would those titans really stand by as a rogue stole their realms and followers?"

"Then what caused it?" Ichor bellowed, his blood surging so fiercely it vaporized from his skin. "Vast multiverses don’t simply vanish into thin air!"

Deimos glanced at his shaking hands, slick with unusual chill sweat.

"Either Lom has surged beyond our worst nightmares in power... or Cosmos permitted him to absorb the multiverse internally. Universe by universe... a covert reaping. He allowed the corruption to fester until only husks remained, then the multiverse imploded into the Pearl’s core."

"But why?" Belial shrieked. The Lord of Lies had stayed quiet till now, brooding over his recent humiliation, but Cosmos’s role yanked words from him.

"He’s overwhelmingly mighty! Truth is, I didn’t flee to the capital..." Belial murmured, voice breaking in humiliation. "He spared me. He demanded Lom’s head and his prisoners’ return. No way he’d let Lom seize the lands tying his divinity!"

The fellow Demon Lords swiveled suspicious, poison-filled stares at Belial. In a tense, choking silence, they eyed him like a sniveling deceiver.

Yet they looked away soon after, dismissing him with headshakes. ’Lord of Lies, after all,’ their quietude implied. ’Covering his retreat with falsehoods.’

"Perhaps you’re correct," Deimos conceded, already spinning fresh threads of reasoning. "Having clashed with him, you grasp his facade best. But are you certain... he didn’t deceive you utterly?"

"Deceive? Before me?" Belial’s vanity ignited, aura flaring wildly. "The Demon Lord of Lies? Ha! Deimos, lost your senses? I detect deceit before it forms!"

"No offense meant," Deimos shot back, condescension thick in his words.

"If you spot all lies, how’d you miss my feigned sorrow over my driver a million years past?"

"Lying without outright falsehoods is simple, Belial. He skipped weaving tales; he just twisted your perceptions. Recast his every statement to you. Every phrase."

Belial paused, pride clashing with rising doubt. "He claimed... he’d release me to the Demonic Realm. No demand from him; I proposed it. Then he warned Lom schemed against us Demon Lords. He craved Lom’s demise... and his holdings restored."

"Lom does scheme against us, that’s fact," Deimos pondered, striding the hall. "But why seek Lom’s end if allied? Obvious. Cosmos gauged you, realized all seven Lords would swarm him. Frightened, he freed you and blamed Lom to redirect us. He sparked demon infighting for breathing room."

"Still, why kill Lom?" Belial pressed.

"Lom probably extorted steep fees to conceal the multiverse," Deimos elaborated, staring into the remote, shadowed heavens.

"Cosmos sought Lom’s death to halt the tribute, and ‘assets’ means territorial command. While we chased Lom, he had Lom shift the multiverses into the Pearl for protection! Not destruction—relocation!"

Belial’s eyes widened in shock. "So... he distracted us, using the Pearl as a cosmic ark? Allowing Lom to ingest the multiverse piece by piece to transplant his civilization beyond our grasp?"

The Demon Lords regarded Deimos with fresh respect. They agreed, embracing this intricate, self-soothing rationale that excused their failure without denting pride.

Meanwhile, tucked in a warped pocket of space inside the meeting hall, a figure meditated cross-legged, stifling explosive mirth.

"Hahahaha! What twisted logic is that?" Lom muttered to the gloom, gripping his belly. "Gotta admit, without knowing reality, I’d buy it! Deimos excels at crafting tales... He ought to write novels; I’d be his top fan."

Lom lurked in the Pearl of Calamity’s flawless concealment, observing the Lords squabble childishly.

In the Pearl’s shadowy inner realms behind him waited thousands of Demon Gods. Some freed from Sunny’s jails, others yoinked from the Lords’ clutches.

His hidden force, though presently sightless and soundless to the exterior, perceived only the emptiness Lom permitted.

But as Lom’s chuckles faded, icy dread knotted his gut. He eyed the blank spot on his map where the Multiverse of Gods belonged.

"But I didn’t claim them..." Lom breathed, thoughts whirling through possibilities. "So where’d those multiverses disappear to? And what caused that spatial splintering?"

Lom glanced at the Demon Lords, then the desolate void. For the first time, the master thief sensed he was the true victim of theft.