Mad God

By the next day, Nilier had left the Lotus Mandala Sect. Nobody knew she was there, not even her own followers. When she reappeared before her people, she spoke before them all, telling them her wish. It was not an order to march that so many expected to receive after being summoned.

"Peace! I only wish for that. I don't care if you are a believer in me or the way of the Immortals. It does not matter! When someone dies from either side, it is the end of their life… it simply is not worth it! So I wish for you all who believe in me; Make peace! And not just with others, but with yourself too!" she said and did not even wait for their reaction as she disappeared, while her main temple's door was shut tight, and not even her Maidens or Priests could reopen it.

It came as a shock for everyone, not knowing what to make out of her words at first. There were a lot of people who simply found it only logical, coming from their Goddess. She had never ordered a crusade before; her staunch believers were focused on helping people and families. True, there were those who may have taken it to an extreme level, but it was in human nature to do so, no matter what kind of cause it was.

The other, similarly surprising turn was that after hearing it, the three Immortals came out simultaneously, stating that they agreed with her words. They even allowed any other sects, kingdoms, cities, and people to worship her if they chose as so. Everyone realized something had happened between the two sides, and it was something big.

"This has to be Athos's doing!" The twins were contacted by Skoorn, clearly boiling inside as his mental message alone caused Alfina's and Oynega's heads to hurt.

"Duh!" both of them grumbled at the same time. "We told you she is a wishy-washy bitch! She still is hooked on his dick, sucking it like a toddler does her mother's tits! She loves that male milk!"

"She needs to go before she messes up everything! If her followers' faith falters, it could impact our plans and make it exponentially harder to seal the Tear!" Skoorn said with a tinge of panic in his voice.

"Worry not; we know how to fix all of this!" Oynega chuckled, "When we kill her, we make it look like the Immortals did it! That would send all of her believers into a fit of rage, doubling their power of faith that we can steal! Not to mention it is going to spark a great war between them! We can join in, gobble up the godless followers, and everything goes back into place!"

"I thought about that too." Skoorn agreed quickly, but Alfina just rolled her eyes, signaling to her sibling that he most surely did not.

"We are going to set up the scene for it~ We can call her out of her Realm with the pretense of questioning her about what the hell she was thinking! Then we strike!" Alfina explained.

"Do it… we can't waste time! If Athos had this much of an influence on her once again, the more we wait, the more he can lead on that simpleton bitch!" Skoorn said with an aggravated voice, cutting the connection, not hearing what the twins mumbled simultaneously.

"The only simpleton here is you!" They said as they looked at each other, laughing loudly.

…
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…..

"You came back at the perfect time!" Ren clapped, hugging her disciple, who was brought back by Kaizer. To her surprise, Ariana not just improved; she even stepped into the 3rd stage of Harmony.

"You were right, Master! A new perspective was what I needed!" She smiled happily and proudly.

"It was easy to teach her!" Kaizer chuckled, "She catches on quickly!"

"When it is explained clearly, it is not hard!" Ariana said with a humble voice.

"What about Kyu?" Ren tilted her head as Kaizer answered.

"Asleep. Back at the Sect, it seems she ate too much; that shark corpse pushed her over the edge, and she fell into a complete food coma!" he shook his head with a smile.

"Then she is reaching a new stage, huh? It was time; she had eaten so many things since coming over; I was afraid her stomach would never get full!" Ren sighed with relief. "Anyway! Good that you come back; you can watch your Master break her own core~."

"When you put it like that, Master, it sounds awfully suicidal!" Ariana rubbed her temple while Ren just giggled.

"Relax! All three of them will stand by and watch!" she patted her shoulders as Kaizer nodded.

"Ophila had set up everything already, and Invictus is standing guard with half of her direct disciples! He is securing the area where you will do it!" Kaizer spoke as they were leaving towards an emptied-out, deserted patch of grassy land. "Everything is ready to maximize the chance of success! My own disciples are also patrolling the area; not even a fly can sneak in!"

"I'm starting to get the feeling you all are overreacting…." Ren said, slightly twitching her eyes.

"We are not!" replied both Kaizer and the arriving voices of Ophila and Invictus. "You are the target of the Gods! We can't be sure enough!"

"Okay, okay, geez! Don't need to bite my head off!" she replied, rubbing the insides of her ear, still ringing by the power of their voice.

After arriving at the correct place, the three Immortals once again went through with Ren how to scan, visualize and portion up her own core, repeating themselves so many times Ren's face was brimming with annoyance. That look she gave Ariana was what made her own disciple finally relax, fully believing that her Master was going to be just fine. After Ophila finally stopped talking and everyone left her alone, Ren casually sat down on the ground, starting to meditate. They were watching nervously from a good amount of distance away, and to ease their twitchy moods, Invictus could not help but ask.

"How many portions do you think Master is going to go for? My bet is on four!"

"I bet on three!" Kaizer replied immediately.

"No way!" Ophila scolded him, "She has time now; no need to rush! It is going to be five! I talked with her about it, and when I explained everything, I also hammered in the fact that five would be the best choice for her!"

"That is why it won't be five," Ariana added, and as they looked at her and back at Ophila, her siblings couldn't help but laugh.

"She is right! The more you tell her something to do, the more she won't do it! You done goofed, sis! Ugh!" Invictus groaned as Ophila kicked his shin with full force.

"Be angry as much as you want, but he is right!" Kaizer patted her head, trying to calm her down, without success, receiving a bite on his hand from their 'little,' tantrum-throwing sister.

"I also think there will be three," Ariana answered, not even taking her eyes off Ren, who was slowly floating in the air by now.

Watching, the trio saw her demigod core appearing. Emerging from her head. It simply levitated above her, gently rotating in the air. High above them, dark clouds started to form, flashing with lightning in the hue of blue, yellow, purple, and even some red that appeared once in a while as the Cosmos tried to force itself into the Realm.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Ophila gulped, watching on nervously, and her mood quickly passed onto the others. It was clear that something was not right, and it was Ariana, whose mouth dried up first, saying with a choked voice.

"Is she mad?!"

Right then, lightning came down, acting like a precise scalpel. It did not strike the demigod core directly. Instead, it went through it at an angle, slicing it into two with one move. Ren's body only jolted as every color left her, but she stayed focused, sitting in the air with tightly shut eyes. The broken-off top of her core was immediately latched onto by purple, electric strands, shooting out from her body, pulling it in and reabsorbing it in a flash.

"No… fucking… way…" many demigods thought, who were responsible for guarding the perimeters. They could not stay focused, their senses turning towards what was happening in the center of it all. It was not every day someone tried his or her hand at attacking one of the steps to immortality. Yet here was someone who went straight at it, slicing her core in half without hesitation. She should be already unconscious and nothing but a blubbering idiot, losing all the functions that made her a human.

"I should've thought about it…." Ariana twitched her mouth, the first to regain herself, standing next to the three Immortals.

"She is going to do it in two attempts…." Kaizer gulped while Invictus started to laugh loudly.

"That is our Father! Bwahahahaha!"

"No…" Ophila cried softly, almost breaking down from her nervousness.

"Okay, okay, she is our mother now! It was by reflex!" Invictus rolled his eyes.

"Not that…!" She pulled on her hair, tearing out multiple strands. "The second half is still outside! She is not finished! She wants to go at it with one attempt! She separated them into two, perfect halves!" She squealed with a thin voice, wanting to rush in to stop Ren, but it was already too late. Any interference now would be equal to a death sentence.

"FUCK…" Ariana, Invictus, and Kaizer replied simultaneously, turning just as white as her, watching Ren's still sitting and meditating body. Even though she was pale, trembling, and bleeding from some of her orifices, her face wore a confident and even mad grin as she latched onto the remaining part with strands of violet lightning, absorbing it into her body and soul.

…
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…..

Nilier stood outside her little cabin, watching her flowers, thinking about who knows what. She had been doing this for hours by now when her body finally moved, and she blinked her eyes; she was receiving a message from the twins.

"We need to talk about what you did!"

"I don't want to," Nilier replied immediately, without hesitation.

"That does not matter! This needs to be talked about!" both of them answered.

"No," she said, cutting off their connection, sealing her little Realm away from them.

She was in no mood to either listen to theirs or Skoorn's blabbering. Everything was too much for her right now. She decided to seal herself away for a little, letting her mind calm down and relax, emptying out all the unnecessary and worrying thoughts. But not everything goes as planned most of the time. Only after half an hour did she feel that her own place was being attacked by multiple God-level forces.

"What are you doing?!" She shouted with evident anger as the sky above her was stabbed through with a rusty sword, cutting a hole in it, and Skoorn simply descended down, followed by the twins. "Have you gone mad?! Destroying my home?!"

"The one who has gone mad is you! Infected by the same disease Athos has carried within himself since the start!" the bald God floated downwards, surrounding her with Alfina and Oynega in tow.

"Lay with filth, get tainted by it~" Alfina chuckled, and Nilier immediately realized something was really, really familiar about the situation.

"You are here to seal me away…." She whispered, her eyes flashing with a multitude of emotions, dominated by primarily self-blame. This already happened once. The difference was she was amongst those who did the surrounding…

"You are wrong!" Oynega shook his head. "We won't do the same thing to you as we did to Kai!"

"We are not barbarians!" Alfina nodded, "We are going to kill you mercifully instead of putting you in an eternal prison~."

"Kill me?" Nilier asked, smiling with a sad look on her face, watching theirs, committing them to memory. "I don't know when you all became like this. It feels like I am the only one who ever looked at you as a family! Seems like I was wrong all along! Serves me right. I should have known a day like this would come after what we did to Kai! But it doesn't matter anymore!" She laughed, but it was a peal of hollow laughter as her robes and hair transformed, turning to the same look she had when fighting the Immortals. "I'll weaken you three before I die! I'll be laughing on the other side when all three of you are going to fall one by one!"