— — — — — —
Outer Gate 1028—
The City of Pleasure was one of the most famous pleasure quarters in the lower layers of Little Garden.
Inside the city, at the Big Boys Bar…
Algol sat boldly at the bar counter, drinking beer.
She wore a tight restraint-style outfit, black straps running across her body, the whole getup making her look like someone from a very particular line of work.
Next to her sat the mature version of Shiroyasha: long pure-white hair, golden eyes, snowy skin, and two black oni horns rising from her head.
Shiroyasha grabbed a mug of beer and downed half of it in one go before grinning.
"Good grief. Nearly half of Little Garden is looking for you right now, and here you are drinking with me?"
"You've got guts. Aren't you worried they'll catch you again?"
Algol rolled her eyes and replied casually, "So what if they do? You think they can actually kill me?"
"Haha! Same old temper," Shiroyasha laughed heartily.
She slapped Algol on the shoulder like an old drinking buddy.
To be honest, in all of Little Garden, the only person she could really call a peer like this was Algol.
It wasn't just because the two of them had once been known as two of the Three Problem Children of Little Garden.
More importantly, they were both Star Spirits.
That alone made Shiroyasha feel closer to Algol.
Well… the same technically applied to Queen Halloween
But Shiroyasha didn't get along with the Queen at all. Compared to her, she found Algol much easier to deal with.
Sure, Algol could be annoyingly narcissistic. But at least she'd never hurled vicious insults at her.
After all, calling Shiroyasha ugly would basically mean calling Star Spirits themselves ugly.
And Algol was one too.
She wasn't stupid enough to call herself hideous.
"Still," Shiroyasha said after taking another gulp of beer, glancing sideways at her, "are you really sure it's fine for you to show up now?"
She shrugged helplessly.
"The Godslayer War just started. All those guys are busy preparing to jump in."
"If you appear right now, it's basically telling them you've already found the path forward."
The War for the Eighteenth Two-Digit Qualification, more commonly known as the Godslayer War, had only been officially named a few days ago.
After lengthy negotiations, the upper layers of Little Garden finalized the title and issued the decree.
Various pantheons had already signed the contract.
Next came the real battle.
The gods would descend to the lower layers in massive numbers, either incarnating as Heretic Gods or becoming Godslayers themselves. By killing one another, they would seize fragments of Authority and open a path toward the two-digit omnipotent domain.
The foundation for this system came from a grand ritual originating in the world of Godslayers: the Circle Of Usurpation.
When a godslayer kills a Heretic God, they can seize fragments of that god's Authority. The fragments transform into powers perfectly suited to the killer, without excessively harming the original divine existence.
In Little Garden, the ability to strip Authority from others wasn't unheard of. Certain rare figures, such as Hephaestus, could do something similar.
But people like that were rare, and the process required enormous effort. It wasn't nearly enough to satisfy the appetites of the gods.
Circle of Usurpation, however, was incredibly simple.
Kill a Heretic God, steal fragments of Authority. What would normally be a complicated process became nothing more than a straightforward battle.
It suited the gods perfectly.
If the higher gods and buddhas hadn't worried about things spiraling out of control and turning into all-out divine warfare, the upper layers might have descended into chaos already.
Still, once a shortcut exists, no one can resist taking it.
The lazy instincts of living beings always push them toward quick and massive gains.
So the gods reached a compromise.
The scale of the war would be greatly reduced, restricted to the four-digit and five-digit ranks, and fought primarily in the lower layers.
Thus the Godslayer War was born.
Both powerful and weaker gods would descend while limiting their strength. There, they would fight opponents of similar rank and seize each other's Authorities. Once someone gathered enough Authorities and elevated them into true Divine Authorities, the road to the two-digit realm would open.
Naturally, the system still wasn't entirely fair. Some gods were already close to the finish line. They needed only a few more Authorities to complete the path.
Because of that, the strongest gods had their entry times restricted. They wouldn't be allowed to descend until the later stages of the war.
And Algol…
She was exactly that kind of powerful deity.
On top of that, Algol hadn't signed the contract between the gods at all. She existed outside the system.
That alone made many high-ranking gods extremely wary of her.
Her ability to enter the battlefield early, combined with the suspicious timing of her escape from sealing, set off alarm bells everywhere.
Shiroyasha stared at the empty beer glass in her hand and sighed. "The old fossils upstairs all think you've already found a path to the two-digit domain. They believe you're just one step away from succeeding."
"That's why they think you chose now to break out of your seal."
"For tens of thousands of years you behaved yourself. Then suddenly you show up right when the Godslayer War begins. Of course everyone's suspicious."
She gave a helpless laugh. "Even if the suspicion isn't true, as long as there's even a tiny chance it might be… they won't let you roam free."
"You might not know this yet, but after that kid Ryo exposed his strength, Zeus got pushed to the very back of the descent roster."
"He'll only be allowed to descend near the end of the Godslayer War. By that point the winner will practically be decided. Zeus won't stand a chance."
Shiroyasha took another sip and shrugged. "I'm guessing they're hoping the same thing happens to you. At the very least, that's the minimum they want."
The best-case scenario for them was even simpler. They wanted Algol sealed again.
Why not kill her?
Because Star Spirits cannot be killed in Little Garden.
To truly kill a Star Spirit, you would have to destroy the celestial body they represent across every observable universe monitored by Little Garden.
That would effectively rewrite the entire history of the observable cosmos.
In other words, it would force the Little Garden Central Authority to reset everything from scratch.
If anyone dared attempt something like that, the Central Authority would fight back with everything it had. Its ultimate defense program could descend near one-digit level power to eliminate the threat.
So in Little Garden, Star Spirits cannot be killed.
No one dares try.
That was why Algol had only been sealed after her defeat in the past.
Which meant the best the gods could hope for was sealing Algol again and removing the strongest competitor from the Godslayer War.
The benefits were obvious.
Otherwise, why would a Buddhist faction spend such absurd resources hunting her down?
Because success would benefit them enormously.
It might even earn them a favor from the Buddha himself… and from the powerful three-digit gods.
Everyone wanted a fair competition. Or at least something that looked fair on the surface.
And Algol was the biggest factor that made that "fairness" impossible.
So she had to be eliminated first.
"Suspicion?" Algol raised an eyebrow.
She looked at Shiroyasha with a faint, teasing smile.
"Shiro-chan… you can go ahead and remove the word 'suspicion' from the intelligence reports of Thousand Eyes."
.
.
.