<~> Chapter 325When I came to, my entire left side was in pain. I lifted my arm to look at the damage. Part of my armor from [Arms of Light] had been torn away and my left arm was skinned from elbow to wrist. When I touched the side of my chest, I found my ribs were bruised and sore. I was still breathing okay, so that was good, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had multiple broken ribs.

  "You know this wasn't the deal, Felketh," Fortuna said.

  I looked up at two of the gods who were standing nearby. Before I could look around, Felketh put a cwed foot on my sore ribs, causing me to gasp in pained shock.

  Fortuna snarled at him. "Get your foot off her before I tear it off." Fortuna looked pissed, but it lost some of its effect since she looked like she was dressed as a Vegas magician's assistant. She was wearing a skimpy leotard with a long bck tailcoat and a tophat. The outfit felt so weirdly out of pce that it drew my attention away from the horrible situation I was in.

  "Reaaax. You're too high-strung. It's Sorsette's fault for accosting me the moment I left the dungeon!" Felketh chirped.

  I turned my head to look at the third goddess standing across from us. Sorsette looked burned and bloodied. She and Felketh must have been the two who were fighting this entire time.

  Sorsette scowled. "Felketh. I'll say this again, you creating an avatar is in viotion of the accords. You know this."

  Felketh giggled. "Accords this, accords that. We both know that the accords affect you the most negatively out of all of us. You should be on my side. The other gods don't care about the mortals the way that we do. They punished you for helping! Such an injustice!"

  "I accepted my restrictions the same way that you had until now, Felketh. As you say, I'm the one most punished by the accords. If anyone should be upset with them, it should be me. But I still believe maintaining the accords is the best way forward. Another war of the gods will not benefit the people we protect. Release your avatar," Sorsette said through gritted teeth.

  "Yet you're pying this game with the Tamin church! They're the ones openly and fgrantly defying the accords, doubling up on followers the way they are. I just want to walk around a little, stretch my legs," Felketh said with amusement cing his voice.

  "We both know your presence here will cause problems," Sorsette growled out.

  Felketh leaned more weight on me when he spoke, which caused me to gasp in pain again. "You've always been so serious Sorsette! We've been friends for so long, why can't you just look away for this one little thing for me? Ey?"

  "Get off of her," Fortuna snarled. "Or she won't be the one fighting with you."

  "Hm?" Felketh looked down at me with his inhumanly rge smile before meeting Fortuna's gaze again. "So much attention on this one little mortal. I know why everyone else seems to fawn over this one, but just what is she to you, hmm? She has the mark and smell of Sorsette all over her, yet you're the one threatening me right now. Just why are you so invested in her?"

  "This wasn't the deal!" Fortuna yelled. "Take your foot off of her!"

  Felketh sighed and finally pulled his foot away from my aching ribs. I took in a breath that hurt my sides. Fortuna looked mollified for the moment, but she was still squinting at Felketh, who hadn't moved away from standing over me.

  "There, are you happy?" he said with a ugh.

  "No. I'm not," Fortuna replied.

  "Fortuna, why did you help him break the accords?" Sorsette asked.

  Fortuna gave Sorsette a sideways gnce. "Technically, I didn't. I just set things up so the right people were in the right pce at the right time, at the direction of someone else. None of the things I did, technically broke the rules of the accords."

  "They may not have broken the letter of the accords, but they broke the spirit of them," Sorsette yelled.

  Fortuna shrugged. "I did what I had to. I'm in this for the long game. I would have circled you in if you had been more amenable, but you fought me at every turn. Still, I'll win this game for the both of us, I promise you that. Checkmate. Good luck in the next go around."

  "Fortuna! You—" Sorsette made a gluk sound as blood sprayed from her mouth. A long bde had been shoved through her chest. The sudden pressure of a fourth god pressed down on us.

  An elven woman with long blond hair, who hadn't been standing there a moment before, pulled back the rge sword, and Sorsette's body fell limply to the ground. "I, Allerel, the God of Justice and Bance, have deemed you guilty for your crimes during the first war of the gods. Death, strip her of her godhood in accordance with my right to judge her." She turned her sword and pointed it at me. "I will prevent the second war of the gods with your death next, succubus."

  I gasped in pain as the pressure doubled and more gods suddenly appeared. Felketh rolled me onto my back with his foot, and did something that relieved the pressure bearing down on me from their presence. ("Too soon to die, kid,") he somehow said through the succubus bond.

  From my back, I saw the new gods that appeared. Morkinnen, the god of love and beauty, Sielfrie, the dy of nature and decay, and Velenthel, the goddess of life and reincarnation, were standing on one side. Even though I had never seen some of them in person before, they were all instantly recognizable from their depictions. A handsome human man, an elf wearing a dress made from bright green leaves and young sprouts, and Velenthel, currently in the form of a matronly looking ram beastkin, just like me. On the other side, near Felketh and me, were Allerel, the god of justice and bance, and a goddess hidden under a cloak who could only be Moira, the goddess of Fate and Future. Allerel looked like an elven woman in white and silver armor, and Moira wore a dark blue cloak that covered everything but her pale, human looking hands. Where her face would usually be, peering out from her hood, was an unnatural looking shadow that obscured all her features. Standing away from all of them was Charon, god of death and change. He looked just as I st saw him, a weary weathered human wearing a dark grey cloak.

  Despite the gaping wound in her chest, Sorsette was still alive, but she hadn't moved once she had hit the ground. Her eyes were staring up at Charon with a resolute look on her face in defiance of what his presence there meant. As he approached, she gnced at the gods that had betrayed her, and it looked as if her determination intensified when her eyes returned to the god of death.

  Charon frowned as he looked down at her. "I am sorry to do this, my young friend, but I am now returning you to the cycle of reincarnation. Perhaps one day your soul will reach godhood again, and we may continue our long talks. Goodnight." Charon bent down and pressed his thumb to her forehead, causing Sorsette's eyes to dull and her body to evaporate into pure mana.

  [Global Alert: Sorsette has been killed by Felketh and the gods of the Tamin church, Allerel, the god of Justice and Bance, and Moira, the goddess of Fate and Future.][Global Alert: [Status] has lost power. [Status] will cease to function and the archive will be lost unless power is restored within two days.]

  Felketh walked away from me, standing near Allerel and Moira. Charon walked away from everyone before turning around to watch, decring without words that he would not interfere.

  "Fortuna, come over here. We'll need your strength in this battle," Moira quietly said. "Our pns are finally reaching fruition."

  Fortuna looked at Moira for a moment before turning her head to lock eyes with mine. "I will side with whoever wins this coin toss." Then, with no other eboration, she flipped a coin into the air.

  Time seemed to slow, and my eyes widened as I watched the simple coin spin from her upturned thumb. It was a quarter. She locked eyes with me. She wants me to do something! It's a U.S. quarter, that has to mean something!

  "Tails," I rasped as I raised my hand to cast [Manipute Probability] on the spinning piece of metal, dumping my entire mana pool into the spell.

  "You liar!" Moira shrilly screamed.

  Fortuna ughed. "I told you I would help you reach this point of my own free will. My loyalty from this point forward is based on the outcome of this coin toss. I'm letting luck decide here, not my will. I have never lied to you, even once. It's not my fault you're used to things always going your way, Fate." The way she said fate was as if it had been a curse.

  The coin bounced and spun in the air again before settling in the dirt... eagle side up.

  Felketh cackled as everything exploded. Allerel's bde met Morkinnen's directly above my head. They then began to move so quickly that I would be unable to perceive them if not for the waves of pressure that hit my beat-up body. I was yanked out from under the two of them and dropped at the feet of Velenthel, who healed me back to pristine shape with a wave of her hand. Dark projectiles mixed with ones that glittered like the night sky and shot toward us before fizzling out to nothing once they reached the dy of decay. She lifted a hand and everything in front of her began to visibly melt... It was hard to describe what was happening to the terrain as everything began to erode before my eyes. The rocks seemed to colpse in ways that benefited our side but hampered their side twice as much. Breaking rocks bounced at odd angles that pelted them from all sides, and they lost their footing when the ground cracked under their feet.

  Through all of this, Charon stoically watched on as the gods fought in front of him. I was unsure what would qualify as a deathblow to the gods. I watched several of them be partially blown up or impaled on each other's weapons before continuing to fight as if the attacks hadn't happened. The damage they received didn't stick the way being impaled had stopped Sorsette.

  Everything that would have hit me or done me any harm missed me in ways that were uncanny. Through all of this chaos, Fortuna was protecting me. I didn't know what to think. She seemingly had been instrumental in killing Sorsette, yet the moment the fight started, she switched sides to mine in an instant. But why? The book on the gods I read said Fortuna and Moira were enemies, but they had been clearly working together until now, why? I didn't understand.

  A bck explosion blew up near me and threw me off my feet again. I nded hard on the edge of a rock and began sliding off the cliff. A thin hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me back up before tossing me away just in time to protect themselves from an attack. I rolled from the throw and looked up to see Fortuna, who was fighting with Moira now. The way that Fortuna fought was bizarre. Her magic looked like a comedy magic routine. She danced around the other goddess, pulling random things out of her hat to attack her with. She also pulled things out from behind her back that clearly hadn't been there before, and assaulted the woman with pying cards that she threw around like a street performer. Moira was only getting angrier as Fortuna barely looked like she was actually fighting. No. Fortuna was pying with her. She was insulting the goddess of fate by not taking the fight seriously. The moment the thought came to mind, Fortuna turned to me, met my gaze, and winked with a shit-eating grin on her face, all in the span of a second.

  Moira screamed and summoned three giant swords made from something resembling the starry sky. From nowhere, Fortuna pulled out a cape and ducked beneath it, only to reappear behind Allerel as the bdes sank into the ground where the cape had nded. Fortuna shoved the goddess of justice forward and threw off her footing enough for Morkinnen to get in a deep ssh through her chest and face. The attack hadn't killed her, but something changed after that. Allerel grit her suddenly repaired teeth, but was now on the back foot. The three gods were backing away and retreating.

  Despite the slowly turning battle, Felketh seemed to be having a bst. Just like Fortuna, he appeared as if he was hardly taking the fight seriously. His attacks were half-hearted, and he was being more disruptive than anything else. He was backing up with the other two, but it felt like something was different there. Unlike the others, he wasn't really attacking anyone directly.

  "Fine. Get us out of here, Felketh!" Moira yelled in response to an unheard conversation.

  Felketh ughed. "As you wish, my dy! It was nice pying with all of you! Until next time!" He said, cpping his hands.

  A bck maw suddenly opened up beneath the three of them and ate them whole. Only moments ter, the demonic creature that had tunneled up from below the ground was eviscerated, but the three gods were gone. All that was left of them was a demonic corpse, torn to shreds where the three had just been standing.

  "I must go," Sielfrie said immediately. The goddess of nature and decay disappeared without another word. Charon nodded and vanished as well.

  I turned to the st three gods. Morkinnen ruffled my hair and smiled down at me with a big grin. "I wish we could have met under better terms, Miss Lilith Baphomet. But it is good to finally meet you. I wish I could speak with you longer, but my followers need me. Goodbye." Morkinnen turned around, took three steps, and vanished mid-stride.

  Velenthel nodded. "I, too, must go. This will not be without repercussions, and I must manage the fallout among my followers as well. Please continue to protect my oracle. You will be one of the few people who can weather this incoming storm without fear." She turned to Fortuna. "I don't know what game you're pying, but thank you for coming to our side. We will talk about this once things have evened out, Fortuna." Then Velenthel too disappeared, leaving only Fortuna and me standing there on the half-destroyed mountain.

  Before I could say anything, Fortuna pulled me into a hug. "I'm gd you're safe," she whispered.

  I froze. I didn't know what to do in response to that. "You... you helped kill Sorsette..."

  Fortuna pulled away and looked at me with a sad smile. "I'm sure not much of this makes sense to you, but Sorsette was doomed. There are not many ways to fight against fate."

  "But you can..." I replied weakly.

  Fortuna nodded. "I can... but I have to pick my battles. Maybe I could have saved her if she had been more willing to work with me, but she wasn't worth the price anymore. It was too te."

  "What price?"

  "You," Fortuna said before patting my arm and stepping away.

  "Who are you, Fortuna?"

  She shook her head. "It's still better that you don't know. It's easier this way."

  I growled. "No! That's not fair! Not after tonight!"

  Fortuna sighed. "Things are going to be hard soon. The heavens will be in chaos, and this world already is in chaos. Everyone will be freaking out without the system, and none of the lesser gods would dare repce Sorsette after what happened to her. If you're still determined to know more about me, you'll have to either ask your oracle friend or rise to godhood yourself. I beg you to at least wait until after things calm down a little, though. Your friends and lovers are going to need you."

  "How do—"

  "Goodbye, Lilith." With that, Fortuna turned and disappeared.

  I was left alone on the mountain.

  Saine

  Hello! Well. Quite a lot happened in this chapter. For a while I've been grumbling about how annoying the system was to deal with. All these numbers to keep track of and micromanage. At one point I got it into my head that if I killed Sorsette, all of that would go away. The more I thought about it and pyed with the idea, the more I thought it would be an interesting avenue to explore. What happens to a world where the system everyone was so used to suddenly disappears? I've always liked Sorsette as a character. I may have mentioned this before but part of the reason this story was even written was because I had the scene of a protagonist meeting the creator of the system in my head. So Sorsette, in part, was the genesis of this story. I didn't really want to kill her, but that's what needed to happen to move the story in that direction. I'm really interested to see how people react to a post-system world. Hopefully it doesn't turn too many people off to the story. I honestly don't think the litrpg elements of this story was its strong suit anyway. Tell me what you think of the chapter, I'm sure it was a lot to chew on. I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading!

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