Demonic Devourer's Development

Chapter 195 - INTERLUDE. Army Of Thieves

When God of Rogues returned to Heaven, it was quiet. Too quiet for a place, the rulers of which knew that their enemy—that they themselves created—was running demons-knew-where. Or maybe it was just that—everyone went to search for him and wasn't home?

God of Rogues wasn't sure. He sneaked into Heaven undetected and, for now, was intent on keeping it that way, which meant no checking on people. Besides, at the moment, his primary concern was one specific person. Though before going after her (or her things, to be precise), he needed to pick up a certain item from his house.

The tower of Goddess of Wizards stood tall and strong, as always. Its glass windows were enchanted to repel any unwanted visitors, and a quartet of angels guarded the front door—a ceremonial guard more than any real one. They all glowed from the enchantments on them.

Well, that wasn't the first time God of Rogues sneaked into someone's abode. He had tools for a situation like that, too, and he just brought it—a small, unassuming green pearl that created a field that scrambled and broke all spells in a meter around it. Even those on items—God of Rogues had to leave his magic pocket at home storage to bring it.

It was a unique item, something that God of Rogues found and looted from a chaos beast dozens of centuries ago. This was the part of them he liked the most. Chaos held infinite possibilities, some of which meant awesome loot. Others just meant deadly monsters.

The inconvenience was worth it, though. With the pearl, the tower's defences were nothing. Oh, he had to climb a glass-smooth wall and cut a hole in a window, but these were trivialities. Of course, later Goddess of Wizards would come around and see her windows broken and her spells scrambled, but for now God of Rogues had a free reign.

The top floors of the tower held the most important of the Goddess of Wizards' quarters. Her bedroom (empty), her laboratory (empty), her library (empty) and her office (empty). God of Rogues wished he knew where she went, or when she would return, but for now he went to the laboratory.

He hoped to find something about the things he found. How much she knew? What was her plan in case of the inevitably approaching doomsday? About Devourer?

The in-depth search of the places where Goddess of Wizards could've stored relevant information took hours. It was made harder by the fact that God of Rogues wasn't as proficient in spellcasting as the goddess, and had a hard time deciphering certain passages at all.

When the moon, that was high in the night sky when God of Rogues arrived, hung low at the horizon, and the sky lightened, he decided that enough was enough. He shed some light on his problem, but it was far from enough.

Goddess of Wizards knew about the possible negative consequences of gathering EXP from the world using adventurers. The classes themselves, and the transfer of EXP from a creature to creature on death, were harmless on their own—after all, any adventurer would die eventually, at least from old age. But when all EXP gathered by adventurer over the course of their life was just amassed in the hands of gods…

Then things grew to be problematic. From Goddess of Wizards' books, God of Rogues confirmed something he only suspected before—EXP was a part of everything in the world, not only living creatures. The cycle of nature that Goddess of Rangers liked to gush about meant that bodies of animals would become part of the earth after their death… and so, their EXP.

Without that substance, the world would've been a wasteland. Gods' efforts were turning it into one, slowly but surely.

Hell would be fine—it was already a wasteland. Heaven—well, gods already were making sure that it won't be anything less than the blooming paradise it was. God of Rogues wondered if that was or wasn't alright to just let this continue.

Mortals… Without EXP, the life in their realm will be not that different from that in Hell. Not that it mattered on the grand scale of things. They would spend most of the lifetime of their souls in Hell either way, except for the most exalted artisans and other people who could make good servants, and of course, adventurers.

'Wouldn't that be a neat joke to pull off? Give Devourer the mortal realm and turn it into a lifeless rock no better than the hole Devourer crawled out. Ha!' God of Rogues thought. 'No, can't happen. He would want to kill me… and I want to do that to him before he gets any ideas. Not that he didn't already.'

Intrigues were a complex thing.

As quietly as he came, God of Rogues left the tower, knowing that Goddess of Wizards would be pissed when she returns and sees the mess—and won't be able to do anything about it, with her powers lost on death. Without EXP she gathered, without her most powerful tome of magic, she was, as far as gods went, helpless.

That brought another grin on God of Rogues' face. He always found her too stuck-up. She thought she was an 'ice queen', he thought she was just a shrew. Beautiful, but so was every god.

It was time to find out what was going on in Heaven and the mortal realm while he was out. It was time… to have a long talk with his angels and his priests.

God of Rogues' had the most extensive network of spies in both Heaven and the mortal realm. The only place where he never bothered to make one was Hell. Scoundrels, brigands, thieves, assassins—adventurers or not, they all prayed to him. His priests bought and sold stolen goods. His adventurers used the power he gave to rob people on the road when they didn't kill monsters.

And all they had pretty sharp ears.