Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 142: The Corpse of a God

"Arzhen..." Ruby whispered then. "I still need to bring this news to the world. It’s too important, too monumental to hide. The passing of such a being... it will shake the foundations."

A pause, laden with meaning. "But I’ll only tell you, only you for now, where you can find his remains. And... as you know..." her voice dropped to a breathy, intimate hush, "...dragon remains are very... very strong. The bones, the scales, the heartstone... You could forge them. Into a weapon the world has never seen."

His blood had ignited then, a roaring fire of ambition and vindication. A dragon’s hoard was mythic, but a dragon’s body was a forge of divine power.

"Quickly," she had urged. "Find it before anyone else catches wind. Or... or you’ll miss your destiny."

She hadn’t told Nikolas first. His cold rival was kept in the dark. But she was the Saintess, after all. She would have to tell everyone, eventually. The Temple, the Empire, the noble houses... and yes, even Nikolas Delanivis.

Such earth-shattering news could not be a secret forever.

Why?

Of course.

To control the narrative. By telling the world... and if he secured the prize, she would craft the story.

Arzhen Vasiliev, guided by fate, was the first to find the fallen titan. The first to honor its passing. The first to forge its essence into a weapon to protect the realm.

First to forge the world’s strongest mythical weapon.

The story would cement his legacy and her role as his divine guide. It would make Nikolas nothing but a belated, envious bystander to his ascension.

The plan was perfect. Ruby was perfect. All he had to do was move.

And claim the corpse of a god.

***

In her previous life, Oathran Alicei had come to see her on the day of her coronation as the child Saintess. He was there to seek an audience with the gods’ new mouthpiece.

The atmosphere in the small, sun-drenched antechamber had frozen solid the moment he entered.

Eight-year-old Ruby had been trembling before he even spoke. He was not like the kindly priests or the proud, smiling nobles. He was... other.

An ancient pressure in a humanoid form, his mist-grey eyes holding skies she was too young to fathom. The sheer weight of his presence forced her to her knees in pure terror.

He had asked her something. His voice was calm, too calm, like the still center of a hurricane. Her small mind couldn’t grasp the full complexity of the question. But one word pierced the fog of her fear.

Death.

His death.

And so, the little Saintess, desperate to please, to prove her worth, to make the terrifying presence go away, grasped at the only thing she had.

The vision flickering behind her eyes, a gift from the gods. She didn’t understand it. She just recited it, the words falling from her lips in a thin, reedy whisper, trembling with her whole body.

"Oathran Alicei will die alone in a ditch."

She’d delivered the divine verdict and braced for wrath, for denial, for the sky to fall.

But the Dragon Lord hadn’t flinched. He hadn’t shown surprise, or anger, or fear. His expression had simply... settled. As if she’d confirmed a suspicion he’d carried for centuries.

He’d looked at her for a long, silent moment, those ancient eyes seeing straight through her childish terror to the immutable truth she’d channeled. Then, without a word, he’d turned and left, his departure as cold and final as a tomb door closing.

She’d been terrified for days afterward, certain she had gravely offended the most powerful beings in existence. But no repercussions came. She never saw him again. Not once in all the years that followed.

Because the prophecy, she came to understand, must have borne true. A creature like that would not seek reminders of his own ignominious end, except that he knew it was true. He asked for his fate, she delivered it, and the account was closed. Forever.

Now, alone in the vast silence of the Temple hall, kneeling on the cold stone, Ruby sneered. The memory wasn’t one of childhood trauma anymore. It was a piece of intelligence. A card in her hand.

Oathran Alicei.

The Lord of the Lords of Beasts.

To die alone in a ditch.

She knew where the ditch was. Her past life had given her the clues. The exact place.

And she knew what happened to dragons who died without the rites to disperse their power, whose bodies were not consumed by sacred flame or buried in star-forged tombs.

They became a resource.

And she had just given the location of that resource to the man who would turn it into a weapon. A weapon that would make him king, and her, his queen.

Well, it wasn’t to her credit, actually.

It was mere coincidence.

She had prophesied that he would perish alone in a ditch, but prophecy alone was just a headline. It didn’t come with a map.

Not to mention, by the time it actually happened in her first life, her foresight had been waning, growing fuzzy, no longer the sharp clarity of her childhood.

Someone else found the ditch.

Someone else stumbled upon the carcass and found a treasure.

Someone else enshrined the ditch, making it easy to pinpoint.

His name was Roarke. A lone werewolf. A hired assassin. A mercenary with no loyalty but to coin. He found the remains, recognized the latent, world-breaking power in dragon bone and scale, and secretly commissioned weapons from them.

Overnight, a blade-for-hire became the strongest single entity in the world.

He didn’t build a shrine at first.

And the dragons... oh, the dragons had not been pleased. The desecration of their Lord’s body, the theft of his essence... it ignited a rage that shook the foundations of the world.

It was an apocalyptic war. The gods of the skies themselves descended and hunted him.

Only when he was finally cornered, torn apart by divine claws, and a shrine was hastily erected over the plundered ditch in a desperate, belated bid for appeasement, did the fury abate. Peace returned, brittle and stained.

The shrine, she remembered, was in the outskirts of the Cassia Kingdom. That was how she knew the exact place. Not from prophecy, but from remembered history.

Of course, Oathran Alicei’s corpse wouldn’t be found yet. Not for another five years, at the earliest.

But Ruby had a plan, of course.

As the Saintess, she held the narrative. She could preempt fate. Arzhen would find it first, guided by her holy vision. It would be a vision she’d frame as an urgent call to prevent future sacrilege.

He wouldn’t plunder it. He would, by her meticulous guidance, immediately build a proper, reverent shrine. She would then announce to the world that this was the will of the gods, to have their chosen vessel and a noble prince discover and honor the fallen titan, to safeguard his rest, and to use his legacy. His power.

This way, the dragons wouldn’t be mad!

They would see pious intervention, not theft. They would see her hand, guiding a respectful conclusion.

Genius.

Yes. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

This way... she would become the Saintess who brought peace to the land.

After all, Oathran Alicei must’ve been dead already. The remains Roarke found had been old. The dragons’ own investigations later concluded he’d been dead for over five years by the time of discovery. The timeline was settled. By now, his corpse must already be in that ditch, freshly dead. Cooling. Waiting.

So, since it would be found and used eventually, even with the catastrophic results, why shouldn’t she control the discovery? Why shouldn’t she sanctify it?

This was for the greater good!

She was preventing a world-ending war!

Yes.

In her and Arzhen’s hands... the weapons forged from the materials, would bring order. Ultimate power. Ultimate influence. Ultimate invincibility.

And finally... she would be happy.

She would be loved.

By Arzhen, with his fierce, possessive heat. By Nikolas, when he saw the power and grace she commanded.

Heh. Of course she’d give Nikolas some scraps of the remains.

If he learned to act nice.

He was her bonded mate, after all.

She would force them, the proud tiger and the cold lord, to be nice to each other, too. For her. Because of what she gave them.

Perfect, perfect plan.