Immortal Paladin

478 The Key & Ultimatum

I opened my eyes, just finishing the conversation through Ezekiel.

Using him as a relay had become increasingly convenient. It allowed me to remain in New Risendawn while still keeping an eye on matters happening elsewhere.

Before me sat the newly revived Lost God.

We were inside a cleaned-up ruin that had once been a small chapel chamber. The rubble had been cleared, the cracked stone floor swept, and a modest table placed between us so the place could receive a guest with some dignity.

I finished brewing the tea and poured a cup for him.

“Here,” I said, sliding it across the table. “Have some.”

He hesitated slightly before taking the cup.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Aureon,” I continued calmly. “Just so we’re clear on the record, everything you told me earlier is the absolute truth. About this Key the Origin King is hunting for. And about how you’ve been hiding from his forces all this time.”

The Lost God across from me looked far less disheveled than when I had resurrected him. Someone had managed to find him a proper set of clothing, and his long blond hair had been tied loosely behind his back.

He shook his head slightly.

“Please,” he said quietly. “Call me Ao Lun.”

He lowered his gaze toward the tea.

“And yes,” he continued, “I have only spoken the truth. The Origin King has been hunting me and my kin for a very long time now. All because of that key.”

After I subdued him earlier and introduced myself properly, the man had folded surprisingly quickly. Once he realized he was hopelessly outmatched, he simply started talking. It turned out Ao Lun knew quite a lot about the current situation.

“The key must never fall into the hands of the Origin King,” said Ao Lun firmly. “Even if I do not know where it is, the Origin King doesn’t care. He believes one of us knows its location. That is why he hunts us.”

His voice grew tense.

“If he finds it, everything will change.”

I tapped the table lightly.

“That’s the interesting part,” I said.

Ao Lun frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“I actually know where it is,” I replied casually. “At least, I think I do. When you described it earlier, something about it sounded very familiar to me.”

Ao Lun went completely pale.

“Please,” he said stiffly, “do not jest about such matters.”

Truthfully, I was still trying to piece things together myself. From what I understood, this world had originally served as a training ground of sorts. The Lost Gods used it as a proving field where candidates could eventually become the Supreme Vessel of the Source.

Which was exactly what had happened to me.

Now that the Source was no longer inside me, they would likely search for another vessel eventually. If their previous recklessness was any indication, they might simply repeat the process somewhere else.

Hell, they might even hijack LPO and turn some unlucky player into the next Supreme Vessel.

The thought was unsettling enough that I pushed it aside.

Instead, I reached into my pocket dimension. Over the years, I had distributed many of my treasures to allies and disciples. Most of my collection now sat locked away in the armory. But there were still a few items I kept on me. Usually the strange ones.

I pulled out a small object and placed it gently on the table.

A key.

Ao Lun’s eyes widened immediately.

“That…!” he gasped. “That is the key!”

He half-rose from his seat in shock.

“I cannot believe it,” he whispered. “After all this time…”

The key had always been a peculiar item. Back in the game, its flavor text described it as the key to a mysterious mausoleum. At the time, I had simply assumed it was part of some obscure questline. I never managed to find the mausoleum on question.

Now I was starting to suspect that the World of Losten had been hiding another purpose entirely.

I tapped the key lightly with my finger.

“Do you know anything else about this thing?” I asked.

Ao Lun stared at it as if it were a venomous snake.

“It seals something,” he said quietly. “A terrible thing beyond your imagination.”

I sighed.

“That sounds incredibly ominous.”

I picked the key up and examined it for another moment.

“Well, in that case I probably shouldn’t hand it over to the Origin King.”

I slipped it back into my pocket dimension.

“Oh, speaking of him,” I added casually, “I might have provoked him a little earlier by telling him that I know where the key is.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ao Lun nearly choked on his tea.

“You did what?”

His composure completely shattered.

“That was reckless!” he protested. “If the Origin King believes you truly possess it, he will send everything he has after you! It would be far safer if you entrusted the key to me. I have spent ages evading him. I know how to hide.”

I shook my head calmly.

“No.”

His expression froze.

“This thing is safest if it stays with me.” I said plainly. “Moreover, it isn’t like you were doing a good job of hiding. Didn’t you just die?”

Ao Lun stared at me as if I had just suggested we wage war against the heavens themselves.

His grip tightened around the tea cup.

“You do not understand what you are provoking,” he said slowly. “The Origin King is not merely another god. He is Shén, one of the exalted race closest to the Origin itself. He is favored by the Origin in ways none of us can even comprehend.”

He leaned forward, voice growing sharper.

“And he does not stand alone.”

His eyes hardened.

“He has Six Queens, each blessed by a Supreme and by the Origin itself. They are not consorts in name alone. Each one commands power that rivals ancient deities.”

Ao Lun’s expression darkened further.

“And then there are the countless Origin Gods born from the Origin King’s own seed. An entire lineage of divine warriors created to serve him. That alone would already be overwhelming. On top of that stands the rest of his regular armies.”

He spread his hands.

“You see the problem.”

His gaze drifted toward the broken walls of the ruined building around us.

“Meanwhile, the Lost Gods have dwindled to almost nothing. Those who remain hide like fugitives across this broken world. Many have regressed in strength because of the nature of the World of Losten. Others have lost their followers entirely.”

His voice grew bitter.

“The devastation caused by the Great Enemy stripped us of our greatest power.”

He looked directly at me.

“Faith.”

He shook his head slowly.

“You are outnumbered in every conceivable way.”

I took a sip of my tea.

“Don’t worry about our military strength,” I said quietly.

Ao Lun frowned.

“That’s no longer your concern,” I continued. “You’ve already lost.”

He stiffened.

“This is no longer your war.”

I set the cup down.

“If you still wish to fight, you’re welcome to do so under my banner. That might displease you, but I’ll be frank. You abandoned your people. You can’t expect them to continue believing in you after everything that happened. I refuse to let them go through that again.”

Ao Lun slammed his cup down on the table.

“It’s not that simple!” he snapped.

He stood up abruptly.

“What was I supposed to do?” he demanded. “Throw my life away in a pointless battle?”

His voice rose with frustration.

“Would that have helped anyone? Would it have saved this world if I died along with the rest?”

He clenched his fists.

“I did what I had to do. I survived so that I could fight another day.”

I leaned back slightly.

“I never said anything about you needing to die.”

His anger faltered for a moment.

“But I can feel their faith,” I continued quietly as the room grew silent. “Before I even returned to this world, Joan’s prayers reached me across dimensions. Though a bit late, considering the circumstances, I paid attention and listened to every single one of them. I remember the sincerity in her voice when she prayed for this world. I remember the desperation when she offered herself because she thought that was the only way to save it.”

My fingers tapped the table lightly.

“I fought my own battles while she stood there believing sacrifice was the only answer. I think I’ve delayed my responsibility to this world long enough. So let me be clear. There will never be any negotiations of any form. We’ll be playing by my rules. Listen carefully, Ao Lun. You’re a god, so you should understand this better than anyone.”

I gestured toward him.

“Surviving to fight another day is admirable, if you’re mortal.”

My gaze sharpened.

“But you’re not.”

The words came out colder than I expected.

“You’re a god.”

My fingers curled slowly.

“And gods die with their people.”

The silence that followed felt heavy.

“If your people died and you failed to do the same,” I finished quietly, “then you have no right to call yourself their god.”

Ao Lun scoffed bitterly.

“How arrogant,” he said, shaking his head in keen disappointment. “Perhaps that is simply how all Supremes are. Arrogant gods who think the world revolves around them.”

I shrugged slightly.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you. But there’s no one else like me. And for the record, I never said I was a god. A god is an idea, and the only way to kill an idea is to kill the people who believe in it.”

I tapped my chest, basically gesturing at myself.

“I’m not an idea.”

I pointed toward the city outside.

“I’m just one of the many faces of the people. That’s what the Great Guard faith is about. Regardless, I can’t have you imposing your way of doing things on me or on them. Their faith bloomed during their darkest hour. I felt it myself. If you suddenly return and reclaim your position as their god, everything they built will collapse back into dependency.”

I shook my head.

“I won’t allow that.”

Ao Lun stared at me silently.

“So here’s what I’m asking,” I said calmly. “When this war with the Origin Gods is over, you will disband every remaining church and cult dedicated to the Lost Gods in this world. No more old pantheons. No more abandoned gods. This world deserves the chance to stand on its own feet.”

I had a plan for the future. Not just a vague hope or some distant dream, but an actual path forward. A future that I intended to see through no matter how long it took.

“Just what are you planning to do?” asked Ao Lun slowly, as if he had already begun to sense where my thoughts were heading.

I smiled faintly.

“I just want humanity to have faith in themselves.”

He blinked in confusion.

After living in this reality for so long, I had come to understand something that people often misunderstood.

Humanity was not a species.

It was something else entirely.

Hei Mao was a ghost who had once been trapped in some corner of the Hollowed World without purpose, yet the loyalty and warmth he showed toward his companions surpassed many living humans I once knew. Ren Jingyi was an animal, yet she possessed compassion and stubborn courage that could shame kings. Ding Cai had once been a soulless homunculus, a mere artificial construct created for a purpose, yet she somehow found herown soul along the way. Even Alice, who had once struggled against the curse within her blood, had proven again and again that the darkness of one's origin meant nothing compared to the choices one made.

Every one of my disciples had shown it.

That quiet, stubborn thing.

Humanity.

After tasting the sorrows of countless lives through the Path of a Sage, even if only briefly, the truth had become painfully obvious to me.

So obvious that it made me cringe a little.

Why had no one realized it sooner?

Or perhaps they had.

Perhaps they always knew.

They simply refused to accept it.

Because the truth was frighteningly simple.

In the end, potential came down to one thing.

It was the ability to believe.

I leaned back slightly and smiled.

“Manifest destiny.”

Such simple words, yet so full of meaning.

At that exact moment, a violent surge of power erupted somewhere outside the ruins. The entire building trembled. The air pressure shifted as something vast and overwhelming pressed down upon the city.

I set my cup down calmly.

“Excuse me,” I said, rising from my seat. “It seems the Origin King is quite impatient to meet me.”

As I stepped away from the table, Ao Lun suddenly spoke again.

“Your eyes.”

I turned my head slightly.

“What about them?”

“They changed,” he said quietly.

I smiled.

I allowed the Ophanim to fully bloom. At first it appeared as a faint ripple across my vision, like the surface of still water disturbed by a falling droplet. The whites of my eyes darkened into a deep, endless void, as if the night sky itself had replaced them. Within that darkness, rings of radiant golden sigils began to rotate slowly around my pupils. Each ring resembled an intricate halo made of interlocking geometric runes.

The circles spun in opposite directions, grinding against each other like cosmic gears turning within the fabric of reality itself.

At the center, where my pupils should have been, burned a tiny star of blinding white light.

And surrounding those stars were countless smaller eyes, faint and translucent, opening and closing like reflections within reflections.

An infinite recursion of sight.

A gaze that looked both outward and inward at the same time.

Ao Lun inhaled sharply.

Even he, a god who had lived for ages, seemed unsettled by the sight.

The Ophanim continued to turn slowly within my eyes, humming with a quiet, ancient power.

I simply smiled at him, and stepped outside to greet my guest.