Chapter 54: Goren: A God and His Rogue

  After failing to slay the Razor Basilisk, Goren woke up on a stack of hay. His mind still raced at the things he had witnessed right before his death.

  The hay didn't make his body itch – because it weren't actually hay. As he brushed his hand against it, the so-called hay dissolved into mud.

  “Figures I’m here.” He muttered under his breath, then called out into the air. “Show your shape-shifting face, you wretched god!”

  “No need to shout, my boy. I’m right here.” Came a voice from behind him.

  Startled, Goren spun around, instinctively leaping to his feet.

  Dolos, now taking the appearance of an old farmer – a classic of his, grinned at him.

  “I told you to stop doing that.” Goren said, frustrated.

  The farmer shrugged casually. “I’m doing my part in creating the strongest Rogue in the history of your world. Surely you’ll forgive me for jesting every now and then.” He smiled, revealing missing teeth.

  Goren sighed heavily. He hated being called to Dolos’ realm. Everything about it was revolting. The hay was mud. The grass was writhing worms. The ground pulsed constantly beneath his feet, as if alive. Even the birds chirping around likely weren’t birds – what they were, he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to find out. The answer, he was certain, would unsettle even someone like him.

  “What do you want?” Goren asked sharply. “You hadn’t called me here for a long while, and I liked it that way.”

  “Ugh.” The old farmer groaned, clutching his chest dramatically. “You’ve broke my heart, my boy.”

  “Stop with the theatrics!” Goren snapped. He really, really hated it here.

  Dolos dropped the act at once, his form shifting fluidly into a woman with short, dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Her face was familiar to Goren – too familiar.

  His mother.

  She had a tired look on her face – the same one she had after she overexerted herself and before she collapsed.

  “Don’t you dare…” Goren growled, anger simmering inside him, threatening to explode.

  “What?” She asked innocently, tilting her head. “What kind of son wouldn’t want to see his mother?”

  “I’ll see my mother – my real mother – once I end Erebus and free myself from you and this shitty time loop.” Goren retorted, his tone growing emotional. “Switch. Your. Form. Now!”

  She shrugged nonchalantly. “Or what? What can you even do? You’re nothing here. Some might argue you’re nothing out there too.” Her lips curled into a mocking smile. “Well, you were nothing. That’s for sure. Nothing until I molded you into something.”

  Goren’s fists clenched, his teeth grinding, but he didn’t argue. He couldn’t. The bastard was right, and he hated that fact more than anything.

  Before he was chosen – before this quest – he had been just another Rogue. He capped at level 57, reaching a dead end. There were only so many quests he could take. Rogues were highly sought after in the kingdom’s inner circles, with their unique skill sets making them ideal for espionage, intelligence gathering, and, on rare occasions, even political assassinations.

  Even the king and his royal court secretly used their services all the time. That was the only reason that despite the fact the class had operated on the wrong side of the law, they were untouched. More than that, they were even allowed to form guilds.

  The problem was that the truly high-paying jobs were reserved for those who surpassed level 75. Those were the real elites of the class, the ones whose names carried weight, like his guild master Miss Belle, or her right-hand-woman, Evangelina Volker.

  Being as low as 57, Goren had to settle for scraps. Compared to other classes in the adventuring world, those scraps were still considered high-paying, but it was barely enough to cover his mother’s medical bills and take care of himself and his little brother.

  “Just get it over with.” Goren said, exhaling in frustration.

  “Good.” She nodded, her voice sharp. “Don’t forget your place.”

  With a fluid shift, Dolos reverted to the form of the old farmer. “Show it to me. The shard.”

  Goren reached into his inventory and pulled out the Darknessbound Core (Shard C), holding it out to Dolos.

  “Is this what you wanted me to find?” he asked as Dolos took the small, nail-sized grey stone from his hand.

  Dolos turned it over in his fingers, inspecting the shard under the fake sunlight that bathed his fake realm.

  ‘I wonder what the sun here really is?’ Goren found himself thinking, his attention drifting.

  “Yes.” Dolos finally said. “That’s the one.”

  “What the hell is it anyway?” Goren asked, genuinely curious.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Dolos replied curtly, handing the shard back to Goren. “You’re not going to use it, so you don’t need to know.”

  Goren sighed in frustration. Dolos always did this – always kept him in the dark.

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  This time, surprisingly, Dolos seemed to notice Goren’s irritation, offering a bit more detail.

  “You don’t need it to defeat Erebus.” Dolos said. “You will be strong enough to do that on your own. Unlike a certain Spellsword we know.” A sly smirk tugged at his lips. “You only need it to ensure your fight with him proceeds as planned.”

  “So, you said…” Goren whispered. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that he would have to erase Spellsword from existence because of a god’s whim. “You’re that sure he won’t get strong enough?”

  The old farmer laughed. “Of course not! Are you serious?” He studied Goren for a moment, his amusement growing. “Wait…you were serious!”

  Goren rolled his eyes, growing uncomfortable.

  “I’ll explain why this is so funny to me.” Dolos said, shaking his head and chuckling. “You see, I had to endure this horrendous System he’s wielding. I know all its strengths and weaknesses. Frankly, it’s outdated – just barely serving its purpose anymore. But he just refuses to change it.”

  “You used his System?” Goren asked, puzzled. “You were a champion too?”

  “I was. Serving The God of Time, Chronos.” Dolos replied, his face twisting in disgust at the admission. He rolled his head, releasing a faint pop as his bones cracked. “Anyway, his memories aren't erased between loops - they're just repressed, and eventually he will acquire them all, but when that happens it would be too late. The second Aidan gets marked by Erebus – and trust me he will, there's no escaping it – his progression will grind to a halt. He’ll still level up and get stronger, but never enough. He won’t be able to avoid the confrontation with you.”

  Goren turned to Dolos, his anger rising as the god reminded him of something unpleasant. "The mark, you bastard! Why didn't you tell me I was marked?"

  Dolos chuckled at the question. "And deny you the opportunity of making friends with the last Axul alive? I would never..."

  "Yeah, right...we both know that's bullshit." Goren rolled his eyes in frustration, turning to a different question that bothered him. “So, you and Spellsword's god – Chronos, or whatever – you served him?”

  “My, my,” Dolos said with a laugh. “Someone’s curious today.”

  “Answer.” Goren demanded, his voice firm.

  The old farmer chuckled again, then shrugged. “I suppose you deserve that much.”

  He turned away from Goren as he began to speak. “I was a soldier. A soldier defending his lands from a foreign invader determined to conquer and unite the entire world under his banner. That’s when Chronos recruited me – dragged me into a battle I couldn’t have even imagined was happening behind the scenes. A battle for my entire universe.

  “I was equipped with that terrible, terrible System, and using my wits and skills alone, I managed to turn the lemons I was handed into a lemonade.”

  “Metaphors, huh?” Goren jabbed. It was his only way to counter Dolos.

  “My people loved them.” Dolos said, reminiscing, a small smile tugging at his lips as he continued. “Then, when all was done and the world was saved, I prepared to return to the battlefield. I still had a war to win. But the damn manipulator just couldn’t let me go…”

  “Manipulator?” Goren asked, his curiosity piqued.

  “Yes!” Dolos exclaimed, his voice rising. “There’s no other way to put it.” He shook his head. “Poor Aidan is just being dragged along by Chronos, likely believing every word he says. Chronos probably tells him I’m the bad guy in all of this. And Aidan swallows it whole because he just can’t help it – just like none of us could!" He exhaled angrily before continuing. "Chronos is a manipulative liar. Everything he does - everything he says - has a reason behind it. All are mental devices he uses to influence his champions. He always knows which buttons to press to get what he wants!”

  Goren’s heart raced. He had never seen Dolos this agitated. This wasn’t just touching a nerve – it was setting his entire nervous system on fire.

  Dolos took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down before continuing.

  “Anyway, I thought I was done with him but the bastard showed up out of nowhere,” he said, his tone still sharp, “and practically pressured me to join him – to become his assistant.” He shook his head slowly, his voice bitter. “The audacity! I had a wife. I had two baby children I didn’t get to see grow up because of the damn war. The enemy was at our gates, and I was fighting so they would have a future!

  “But Chronos? He just had his way with words. He knew exactly what kind of person I was. He knew that if he framed his arguments in a certain way, I wouldn’t be able to refuse. He knew me. He knew that offering me the chance to save billions upon billions of lives would make it impossible for me to say no.

  “And so…I agreed.”

  Dolos began pacing, his movements restless, his voice barely containing his rage.

  “I helped him. I did everything in my power so we could defeat Erebus, time after time. But it wasn’t enough for him.

  "I suggested improvements to his damn System, but he refused every time, saying, ‘if it ain’t broke, it don’t need fixing’.” Dolos sarcastically mimicked a voice which Goren assumed belonged to Chronos. “I endured in silence. I watched as our champions achieved victory after victory – but at such terrible costs.

  “Some were maimed for life or lost their minds. Others lost their best friends, their families, their lovers. And Chronos? He didn’t care. For him, the end goal was all that mattered. As soon as the battles were over, Chronos would just wrap things up and we were gone, leaving a broken person behind."

  He stopped pacing and turned to Goren, visibly boiling with anger.

  “I ask you, Goren Shein,” Dolos said, his voice trembling with emotion, “how is that fair?! How is it fair that someone we forcefully recruit into this fight – a person who suffers so much to save the world – has to lose everything by the end of it? Everything they fought for?! And all after there was so much we could’ve done about it beforehand!”

  Goren didn’t know if he could believe him. Dolos had proven himself to be cunning on many occasions, but his emotions seemed raw, almost sincere. So, Goren stayed silent and continued to listen.

  “And then she came,” Dolos said, his gaze drifting away, as though lost in a memory. “The beautiful Arabella…” his voice softened. “If souls and reincarnations are real, then Arabella was my wife – there’s no doubt in my mind. She had the same fire my Celeste had. I couldn’t fight it. I fell in love with her all over again.”

  He shook his head. “I could already guess how it would end for her, and I didn’t want that. I went to Chronos again, begged him to change things while there was still time. To adjust things before it was too late. But he refused, just like before.

  “And then, everything I feared came to pass. To defeat Erebus, Arabella had to sacrifice herself – to blow herself up to imprison Darkness. And for what? Another thousand years of peace for Chronos?

  “They’re both timeless, for crying out loud! Both Chronos and Erebus experience millennia as if they were minutes!”

  Dolos suddenly laughed bitterly. “Of course, he refused to revert time and save her. For him, the end always justifies the means. Who cares about one girl, when billions of lives are saved, right?” he paused, his voice dropping to a growl. “Well, wrong! I cared for her! And I cared for all the ones who came before her – because I knew what it was like to be one of them!

  “So, I left. And I never looked back.”

  Goren tilted his head, confused. “And yet…here you are. Fighting Erebus again?”

  Dolos shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. It wasn’t a smile of joy but one of pure malice.

  “Oh, I’m not fighting Erebus anymore.” Dolos said calmly. “He’s secondary to me now. If you defeat him – great. If you don’t – I don’t care, as long as you kill Aidan Dar. As long as Chronos suffers.

  "In my eyes, he's even more evil than Erebus." Dolos shook his head. "The only difference is that while one of them is a being of pure destruction that will never cease to exist - nor could it change its ways - the other is a more controlled, calculated evil." His grin widened as he continued. “So I'll continue as long as the blight of Erebus burns him – burns him until he can no longer exist."

  He turned to face Goren, a grin spreading across his face.

  "They say gods can’t die, right?” He said as he approached his champion, leaning closer for a whisper. “Well, I’m just here to test that claim.”