Champion Of Lust: Gods Conquer's Harem Paradise!

Chapter 291 Gods' Gameboard & The Forgotten Path

If there was one thing Pyris knew with absolute certainty, it was this: The Cosmos always maintained balance.

For every veil of lies the gods cast over mortals, for every act of greed that tipped the scales, the cosmos responded. It birthed something to restore equilibrium.

God-Slayers.

Beings unlike any other. Capable of opposing gods, of bringing them to their knees. Neither fellow gods nor immortals possessed the power to do this to themselves.

Only God-Slayers did.

The gods' greed was like planting seeds, and the fruits of their unchecked desire were God-Slayers. A cruel irony as Pyris thought of it. But like any farmer, the gods believed they controlled their yield. They thought they could cut down these dangerous fruits whenever they wished.

They were wrong.

For centuries now, the gods had scoured the cosmos, hunting and erasing God-Slayers before they could rise. They continued their slaughter to this very day.

The most infamous among their victims—though few even knew the truth of her identity—was Lucy Obsidian. A God-Slayer whose existence was shrouded in secrecy even now.

"Ah, complicated stuff..." Pyris muttered, pressing his fingers to his temples. His head felt like it might explode.

By all accounts, Pyris himself should have been dead by now. If the gods had known he was a God-Slayer, they would have eradicated him without hesitation. But thanks to Zaryana's ring, his secret remained safe.

The gods—particularly the Ancients—knew of the prophecy. They suspected another God-Slayer would rise from the Obsidian lineage. They just didn't know who or when.

That ignorance had bought Pyris time.

"Is that why they're moving now?" he wondered aloud. It made sense. The Ancients, more than anyone, would recognize the signs. They would know when a God-Slayer was born, and they would act swiftly to eliminate the threat.

But for now, Pyris chose to shelve the thought.

"Ah, let's leave that for now…" he groaned, leaning back and exhaling deeply.

The weight of it all—prophecies, veiled truths, and the eternal shadow of the gods—pressed heavily on his shoulders. But one thing was clear: his time would come.

And when it did, balance would be restored.

Anyway there was something he hadn't shared with his mother or anyone, the Truth of mortals he was talking about and...

Pyris hadn't shared everything about the game with Emberly. There was one crucial detail he'd kept to himself: he and his chosen would retain all of their progress within the game.

He knew his mother well. Even though she was remarkably clear-headed in matters like this, he feared that knowledge would cloud her judgment—perhaps by as little as 2%, but it would still be enough to skew her perspective.

The fact that other mortals could retain 50% of their progress hadn't seemed to surprise her. After all, the real-world counterpart of the game had always offered 30%. Still, this was no ordinary game, and she would learn soon enough how the rules differed.

This wasn't just a shortcut to power. No, the system had made it clear: the game was far harsher than reality. Pyris knew better than to underestimate it. If he had learned one thing about the system, it was this—when it said something was easy, it meant it was hard by mortal standards. And when it said hard? It meant almost nigh impossible.

The system's definition of difficulty, Pyris suspected, was measured from a divine perspective. It wasn't calibrated to mortal limitations.

But that was the challenge, wasn't it? The 50% boost wouldn't come freely; mortals would have to earn it. And wasn't that what made the game so thrilling? A world that mirrored reality, where progress required blood, sweat, and relentless determination?

Just thinking about it brought a smile to Pyris's face.

"We're going to create monsters," he mused quietly.

If there was one thing mortals possessed that gods and immortals lacked, it was their uncanny ability to rise beyond impossible odds. Their drive to evolve, to adapt, was unmatched. The Truth...

This was the thing gods were afraid of.

"Perhaps the gods realized that long ago," Pyris thought aloud, his smile fading. "Maybe that's why they rigged the rankings of power."

From the moment mortals were born, they were taught the lie. That Rank 20 was the pinnacle of mortal achievement. That there was no higher threshold apart from Immortals and Gods rank.

It was an invisible ceiling, one that imprisoned their ambitions and shackled their minds.

How could they ascend to realms they didn't know existed?

The mind was the foundation of everything. If mortals believed something was possible, they would strive for it, inch by agonizing inch, until they reached it.

But if they didn't even know it was there?

The gods had programmed mortals to believe Rank 1 through Rank 20 was the entirety of their world, and next after Rank 20 is Immortality, a lie.

Yet it was the unshakable law, a belief so deeply ingrained that generations lived and died without questioning it.

This was why beings like Dracula and other old monster weren't ascending into immortality despite being at the very top of Rank 20.

But Pyris knew this Truth. The so-called pinnacle of mortal power was nothing more than a carefully crafted illusion. The true path immorality and godhood didn't lay just beyond Rank 20, it shrouded in mystery and erased from the annals of time.

For centuries, not a single mortal on Argos had ascended to immortality, let alone godhood. And the reason was simple.

They didn't know how.

The gap between mortality and immortality wasn't just a physical divide; it was mental, conceptual. And that divide had been systematically erased.

Pyris felt a chill run down his spine.

"How did the gods erase an entire realm of existence and power from mortal minds? Even from the scars of time?"

The implications were terrifying. To overwrite knowledge so thoroughly, to strip it from billions of minds across countless generations...

"Absolute and endless slavery," Pyris murmured, the words tasting bitter on his tongue.

That's what it was. The gods had enslaved mortals to their own ignorance, chaining them to a realm they would never escape.

But how? How could such a feat be accomplished?

"Mind manipulation? Or outright mind erasure? No it has to be something beyond that." Pyris's brow furrowed. "Only a god could wield that kind of power. No... not just a god. An Ancient God. Or perhaps something beyond even Ancient Gods."

The realization made his stomach churn.

He was lucky, though. He hadn't fallen victim to the same veil of ignorance. Thanks to the Goddess, his mind was free from their chains.

Most people would look at him and assume his rise through the ranks was rapid, almost miraculous. But Pyris knew better. His progress wasn't rapid—it was insignificant.

The chasm between Rank 20 and the hidden realms beyond was unimaginable. If a mortal's journey through the ranks was likened to growing from a child into an adult, then the divide between the current ranks and true ranks for ascension was the difference between a toddler and an elder who had lived for centuries.

No... perhaps the gap was even wider than that.

And that's why Pyris had chosen to keep this knowledge to himself. Not even his family or those closest to him would know—at least, not yet.

For their safety, the secrets of the cosmos had to remain buried. To reveal them recklessly would invite disaster. The Goddess had warned him of this before his reincarnation.

"What a headache," Pyris muttered, running a hand through his hair.

The Goddess hadn't told him when this veil of slavery began, nor had she given him a clear path to escape it. That, it seemed, was for him to uncover. But she had told him, Lucy Obsidian had closed this chasm, that alone made her almost wipe floor with an Ancient God, the Elemental Deity.

"She hates silver spoons, she should have told me more" Pyris thought bitterly. "Whatever..."

He leaned back, exhaling slowly.

This wasn't just about his survival anymore. It wasn't just about the game. It was about something far greater.

And it was only beginning.

"Lucy Obsidian..." This name was appearing more and more as his journey continued. How much had she done and how powerful was she? Where was she... Exactly where had she disappeared to?