The Villain Rising: Ascension of Arcane Trickster.-Chapter 223: Preparing to Embrace Death Once Again.

"And that makes you my big brother."

...Seriously. What kind of logic was that?

Rael sighed.

No matter how hard he tried to make sense of it, he just couldn’t but, oh well, having a God call him big brother didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.

He puffed his chest slightly, his smile widening.

"So, Winter," he said, "what exactly is the Seed of Divinity?"

He didn’t hold back his questions anymore.

Winter studied Rael for a moment before answering.

"I can’t explain everything to you, big bro as most of that knowledge is sealed and you still lack the strength to fully comprehend it." He paused, then continued, his tone simplifying. "But in simple terms, think of the Seed as your eligibility to step beyond mortal ranks."

Rael nodded as he had expected this much. He knew there were restrictions on the information he was allowed to access but he wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste.

The Seed of Divinity hadn’t been mentioned anywhere in the novel so knowing more about it would definitely help him more.

"So does that mean only those with a Seed can ascend to godhood?" He asked.

Winter’s lips curled into a grin. "No, that’s not how it works. The Seed merely makes the formation of a divine path slightly easier."

He continued casually as if discussing something trivial. "Even those without a Seed can still forge their divinity through other methods but having one... is exceedingly rare and it’s always better."

"Hmm, I see." Rael mused.

So that meant I just had to create a path of my own, one that would let me ascend beyond mortal ranks and the Seed would serve as my anchor.

He understood the meaning hidden beneath Winter’s casual explanation almost instantly.

"In any case, that’s something you will understand on your own and honestly, it’s better that way as unraveling mysteries yourself is way more fun than having everything handed to you, right?" He let out a childish laugh.

...Yeah, spending too much time with that bastard Trickster really did corrupt this poor boy.

Rael shook the thought aside and moved on to his next question.

"Did Trickster say anything else about me?"

He was deeply curious about what else that bastard knew about him.

Winter’s laughter faded, his expression sharpening.

"He was a whimsical god." Winter said. "He spoke in riddles most of the time and back then, my young mind struggled to even understand what he truly meant."

He paused before continuing.

"But on rare occasions when he was normal according to his sense, he did say that if you survived long enough, you had the potential to grow beyond what even he ever could."

Winter’s sightless eyes somehow seemed to lock directly onto Rael.

"He told me that when his successor appeared, I should help and guide him because that successor would help me in return."

"How?" Rael asked.

Tsk, I should have known that there were no free brownies in this world.

He could only hope the boy in front of him wouldn’t say something like hand over your body so I can forge a cool weapon out of it.

As Rael drifted through his unnecessarily exaggerated thoughts, Winter answered.

"The Trickster kept my father’s soul preserved in a state between death and life in exchange for a favor he asked me to hold onto for a very long future."

Winter’s voice trembled, barely containing the hope beneath it.

"Although I can’t tell you what the favor was, it was done for your sake and because of that, he asked me to collect the rest of the price from you."

Rael’s eyes twitched.

What kind of debts did that bastard leave me with?

First enemies and now a favor owed to a literal god.

"What kind of price?" He asked cautiously, already preparing himself to abandon his physical body if it came to that after all, that was the only reliable way to escape a god.

He knew that even if Winter himself couldn’t do it due to restrictions from Heavenly Principles, there was nothing stopping him from sending him to some impossible to complete trial within the treasury in the name of fairness and even if Rael somehow survived it, what was stopping Winter from sending him to another such trial repeatedly.

That’s why the only way to survive was to die and strike a deal with one of the Gods of the Underworld.

Previously, he might have hesitated but unlocking the Moon Card had given him confidence and as long as he wasn’t sent to Helheim or the Domain of Vael’runn, he could survive death at least once.

Tartarus would be the best-case scenario.

Hades loved good deals and as long as Rael could offer something worthwhile, resurrection wouldn’t be out of reach but that said, he couldn’t fool Hades the way he had fooled Hel and any agreement made would have to be honored to the letter.

Duat would be the second-best option.

Osiris, unlike Hades, wouldn’t even listen to a deal upfront and Rael would first be thrown into a trial, judged on worthiness before being granted the right to speak and that trial would be anything but simple.

As for Irkalla...

That had never been an option to begin with.

Unlike the others, even Vael’runn or even Hel, whom Rael might gamble on deceiving again, Ereshkigal wouldn’t entertain pleas or negotiations. She would erase him outright, likely before he could even open his mouth to speak. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

There was a time, long before the awakening of the Moon Card, long before he repeatedly absorbed memories from Ra in the loop, when Rael’s recollection of the novel was still hazy, back then, he had genuinely believed Ereshkigal to be a chill god and he had even hoped to end up in her underworld if Ashavar had killed him back then.

In a way, that wasn’t wrong but the timeline of his memories, however, was. She was chill hundreds of thousands of years ago.

In the novel, she was barely mentioned, appearing only in a single flashback arc centered around another god where she was portrayed as necessarily lawful but not heartless but that was during the period shortly after she had newly ascended as a God of the Underworld.

But there had been a single line Rael had forgotten.

A line describing how the countless years spent in Irkalla, a world without light or joy, severed from everything except the dead, had changed her in the present endlessly. She hadn’t been merciless when she first took the throne but she became one after hundreds of thousands of years trapped in that world.

A god eroded by eternity.

Rael silently thanked his luck that he hadn’t been killed by Ashavar back then.

Despite the storm of thoughts racing through his mind, barely a second passed in the outside world, thanks to the processing power granted by the Moon Card.

Winter replied, completely unaware of the divine lore Rael had just gone through.

"As I said before, I don’t need anything," Winter continued softly. "Or at least, nothing much for you. All I want is..."

He paused.

"Your Arcana Card."

"Yeah... no."

Rael rejected the request instantly, not even bothering to entertain it. He didn’t know how to extract the card from his soul nor what would happen if it were removed.

After all, it had effectively become the anchor of his very existence.

So, how could he give it to him just like that?

He was ready to get killed.

Let’s hope I get either in Tartarus or Duat.

The odds were only forty percent, less than half but it was still better to gamble his life on a forty-percent chance of surviving intact than accept a hundred-percent certainty of being doomed.