Chapter 184: Rogue God

"Damn it!!"

Ethen spat the curse out loud as he stared at the shriveled black tentacles scattered across the ship’s rotting deck.

Even after being sliced into pieces by the Demi-god blade, the severed parts still twitched and squirmed against the wood like dying eels. Watching the twitching black stumps made his stomach turn with pure anger.

He couldn’t believe how close he had just come to throwing his life away.

He had been baited like a total rookie by a hidden god.

If he hadn’t paused at the last second, and if Adam hadn’t read the warning on the leaf in time, Ethen knew he would be a cold corpse right now. There had been no obvious warning signs down below, no leaking divine aura to raise red flags.

The shadow creature had deliberately played dumb, acting like wounded prey to drag them straight into the beast’s gaping maw.

In reality, they had been strutting right into an ancient spider’s web.

[Don’t make any further moves, I’ll send someone there in 30 seconds.]

The tiny green sprout rooted on Ethen’s shoulder pulsed with gentle warmth, sending words directly into his mind.

Ethen’s tense shoulders dropped an inch, and he let out a heavy breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

That sprout was an avatar directly tied to the World Tree.

Even after the brutal crisis with the Blood Serpent God back in the Beast Territories, the World Tree had reached out to him a few times before slipping back into its usual slumber.

This time, the foul scent of a rogue deity had forced it wide awake.

Ethen glanced down at the little leafy shoot poking out of his armor.

It looked completely harmless, like a stray weed picked from a garden path.

Yet Ethen knew the horrifying weight standing behind that tiny piece of green. The World Tree had turned its gaze here, and that backing gave him a real shot at surviving this mess.

"Hm?"

A strange scuffling sound pulled Ethen out of his racing thoughts.

He turned his head toward the edge of the shattered weather deck.

Adam was squatting on his heels near the railing, his bare hands casually scooping up the dried, withered tentacles that had been chopped off during their mad escape.

Ethen just stared, his brows knitting together in complete confusion.

Adam picked up a long, leathery tentacle that still smelled of burnt sulfur.

Then, right before Ethen’s eyes, the dead black limb began to warp and twist inside Adam’s grip.

The dark, nasty skin melted away, smoothing out and shifting colors like soft wax.

Within three seconds flat, the dead tentacle had turned into a bright, crisp red apple.

Ethen froze.

He stared at the fresh fruit sitting in Adam’s dirty palm.

Then he looked at Adam’s calm face.

Then he looked right back at the impossible apple.

Adam caught him staring and offered an innocent, sunny smile, not looking bothered in the slightest.

Without saying a single word, he calmly reached down, grabbed another dried black tentacle, and started working on his next snack. To the First Man, these bizarre lumps of divine flesh were simply free spoils of war.

Ethen’s left eye twitched with pure exhaustion.

He decided right then and there not to ask a single question.

There were already too many insane things happening at once to waste brain cells on Adam’s weird diet.

Roughly thirty seconds later—

BOOM!!

A thunderous sonic boom ripped through the low, stagnant clouds over the crater.

The sheer shockwave battered the rotting ship, rattling the timber frames and throwing up clouds of dry gray dust as a blur crashed down from the sky.

The heavy landing hit the weather deck like an artillery shell, blowing away the loose splinters.

"Your Royal Highness?"

Ethen’s eyes went wide as he recognized the newcomer standing in the settling dust.

The old man wasn’t wearing his polished gold crown today.

He wasn’t draped in his majestic, flowing royal robes either.

There was even fresh, sticky blood smeared across his cheek and jaw, showing clearly that he had been in the middle of a brutal brawl before dropping in here.

Yet despite the mess, his weathered face was as steady as an iron anvil.

This was the undisputed King of Bark.

Martin Martel.

"Hm."

Seeing Ethen alive and standing on his own two feet, the old king gave a short, curt nod.

His sharp eyes swept the deck in half a second before locking directly onto Ethen’s face.

"You managed to bump heads with a rogue god?"

Martin’s voice was totally casual.

He asked the question as if Ethen had simply stepped in a mud puddle on his way to breakfast.

Ethen just stared blankly back at him.

The confusion was written plain across his face, his mouth slightly open as his mind raced.

Martin caught the blank stare and quietly let out a soft, relieved breath.

*Good.*

Ethen clearly had no clue what a rogue god even was.

If the kid had answered right away without missing a beat, Martin would have been forced to draw his weapon and assume the worst had already happened.

A god could hijack and hollow out a mortal body in the blink of an eye.

And if Ethen had already been possessed by whatever was sleeping in the bilge, there was only one clean answer for an Angel.

Erase him on the spot.

Thankfully, the kid was still just a confused, stubborn mortal.

"Hold still," Martin said, taking a single heavy step forward.

The old king raised an open palm, pushing a sudden, cool wave of foreign energy straight into Ethen’s mind.

Ethen’s entire frame locked up on instinct, his hand twitching toward the hilt of his saber.

The energy wasn’t trying to harm him, though.

It swept through his sea of consciousness like a broom, clearing away the lingering dark fog before stamping itself onto the center of his forehead.

A glowing, intricate runic seal flared against his skin.

It burned brightly for half a second before fading completely beneath his brow.

Ethen couldn’t see it anymore, but he could clearly feel the heavy, solid lock guarding his thoughts.

"What did you just—"

"Do you want to watch me butcher a god or not?" Martin cut him off with a rough smirk.

A feral, toothy grin spread across the old king’s blood-streaked face.

Ethen blinked twice, swallowing his remaining questions.

He gave a firm, decisive nod.

He had watched high-tier monsters fight before, but an Angel going to work up close was an entirely different kind of lesson. And from the relaxed, bored tone coming out of Martin’s mouth, stepping on this particular god didn’t sound like a hard job at all.

Without wasting another second, Ethen, Adam, and the King of Bark headed down into the dead ship together.

They moved quickly through the ruined corridors, stepping over the holes they had blasted through the deck during their earlier retreat.

The deeper they walked, the heavier the surrounding air became, thick with the smell of stagnant swamp water and dead magic. Ethen kept his fingers glued to his weapon, swearing to himself that he wouldn’t let his guard slip this time.

The three came to a halt right outside the heavy wooden hatch leading into the lowest hold.

Martin didn’t bother asking for a tactical breakdown.

He didn’t draw a sword or whisper an incantation.

He just walked up to the door and kicked it.

BAM!!

The reinforced ancient wood exploded into a shower of flying splinters as Martin strolled straight into the gloom with Ethen and Adam right behind him.

The scene inside was identical to what Adam’s hound had spotted through the shared vision.

A crude, heavy wooden throne sat squarely in the middle of the rotting chamber.

The shadowy Demi-god wolf was still lounging on it like an arrogant king.

And on the back wall behind the seat hung that bizarre, faded oil painting.

Ethen’s eyes immediately darted toward the canvas.

That creepy portrait was what they had blamed for stopping the hound’s heart earlier.

Martin, however, didn’t spare the painting a single glance.

"Mold," the old king muttered, his voice cold and commanding.

The rotting deck beneath the throne suddenly ruptured.

Thick, thorny green vines erupted from the cracked wood like hungry vipers.

They moved with blinding, violent speed.

One massive vine whipped across the chamber, slapping the Demi-god shadow beast so hard it flew off the seat and slammed into the opposite wall with a wet crunch.

Another vine instantly lashed around the beast’s throat, pinning it flat against the timbers.

At the same exact time, half a dozen thicker, wood-like vines surged up from the floorboards, wrapping around the throne itself and pinning it hard against the back wall.

The entire sunken ship groaned and shuddered from the kinetic shock.

"Who the hell are you?" Martin demanded, his brow furrowing as he glared at the pinned furniture.

There was zero response from the shadow beast choking against the wall.

The vines didn’t stop growing.

They coiled tighter and tighter around the heavy wooden throne, digging deep into the grain like living iron chains.

The dry timber began to groan and splinter loudly.

Thick cracks spider-webbed across the armrests, deforming the ancient seat under insane pressure.

Ethen watched the whole thing in silence, his eyes widening as the pieces fell into place.

The god was never sitting on top of the throne.

The god *was* the throne.

The ancient wood was its actual vessel, and Martin had sniffed out the trick before he even stepped through the doorway. All the old king had to do was crush the seat into kindling, and the god’s anchor would shatter right along with it.

The green vines tightened with a sickening, grinding squeal.

Deep cracks split down the backrest.

Then, a voice broke out.

[Killing me will gain you nothing, Angel. I am merely a minor god, forgotten by time.]

The voice echoed inside their skulls, cold, ancient, and heavy with power.

It didn’t come through the air like normal sound; it stamped itself into their vision in glowing, floating Holy Text that burned the eyes to read.

Ethen’s grip on his saber tightened as the divine pressure pushed against his chest.

Martin didn’t even blink.

"What era, and from which race?" the King of Bark asked, his voice steady and dry.

He didn’t sound mad.

He didn’t sound like he was trying to flex his authority either.

He was just asking for facts, like a bored guard checking papers at an entrance gate.

The dark room hung in tense silence for two long heartbeats.

Then, the cracked wood of the throne groaned, and more burning text flared in the air.

[The Akasha is my bloodline.]

The glowing letters hovered silently between the crushing vines.

[As for my era? I walked the mortal realm shortly after the Great Fall of Hargth.]

The ancient entity laid its cards on the table without trying to lie.

It had easily tricked Ethen and Adam earlier because the two of them were young, blind mortals who didn’t know the first thing about forbidden history.

They didn’t know the Akasha.

They had no clue what ancient abilities were baked into that dead race’s flesh.

They couldn’t see the traps because they didn’t even know the traps existed.

Martin Martel, however, was an authentic Angel of the Bastion.

And an Angel who had lived through centuries of slaughter knew the old world inside and out.