Chương 455: (448) 6.62. Divine Debate

Vin opened his eyes, looking around at the familiar black void he'd found himself in too many to count by now. Without even waiting for her appearance, he knew exactly where he was, and thus Vin wasn't surprised in the slightest when the Goddess of Benevolence manifested before him. The Goddess looked as she always did. A woman with beauty beyond measure, her long, flowing hair drifting about her head as though she were submerged in water.

The moment her eyes landed on his own, she smiled, and a warmth unlike anything one could experience in the real world filled Vin's chest.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, surprising him with her question.

"Uh… fine?" he replied, raising an eyebrow.

"That's the first time you've ever asked me that. In fact, I don't think you even asked me how I was feeling when you saved me from having my own body dissolve into mana around me."

"That is because you didn't attempt something quite as simple as trying to free the mana making up your body this time around," she said, laughing softly as she strode over to him and looked at him more closely.

"Vin… do you even realize what you just did?"

"I asked the mana to shift the properties of the barrier between fragments in an attempt to block the mental commands the Rebel Queen was sending to her trogums," he said, starting to grow concerned. The Goddess was looking him over as if trying to ensure he wasn't missing any pieces, and that worried him more than anything. Generally, when a God or Goddess looked like they weren't certain of something, that wasn't a very good sign.

"…Is that bad?"

"It is neither good nor bad. It merely is," a new voice spoke from behind him. This one filled with cold authority that sent a spike of fear through Vin's chest and he spun around, finding himself face-to-face with the God of Contracts as the God stared at him. Just like the last time he'd spoken to him, Contracts looked like a hard-faced man with dense, golden chains wrapped all along his body.

"Contracts, is this really necessary?" Benevolence asked, moving to stand between Vin and him as she faced down the far more dangerous-looking God.

"He obeyed your request all on his own! Your threats were unnecessary!"

"I do not threaten," Contracts said, though he made no move to step forward, choosing instead to stand there in the void and continue staring at Vin.

"I do this for you, Benevolence. To correct your mistakes."

"Would either of you mind explaining what's going on?" Vin asked, surprising himself with his own question. He never thought he'd get used to dealing with literal Gods who could presumably squash him with a flick of their fingers, but one could only be pulled into their domain so many times before the experience began to grow old. He'd been handed gifts, offered threats, and pretty much everything in between. At this point, he just wanted to wake back up and carry on with the plan.

Scule and Reginald would arrive at the Rebel Queen sooner or later, and he wanted to be able to go after them the moment they did.

"Contracts is here because he wishes to renew the original contract the two of you agreed to," Benevolence explained, looking almost proud of him as she tried and failed to hide a slight smile on her face.

"The one that would prevent you from speaking about the importance of Earthers on Edregon."

"Huh? Why do we need to renew it?" Vin asked, his brow furrowing as he returned the other God's pointed state. Though even as he asked, he recalled noting the sensation of something gleaming and heavy manifest around his chest during his pleading with the mana, and he blinked as it all clicked into place.

"Wait… Did the mana erase the divine contract you all but forced me to sign?"

"Yes," Contracts said simply, his face a complete and utter mask that gave away none of his emotions.

"Which is why I have returned to create it anew. What I do not understand is why you chose to interfere again, Benevolence."

"I only mean well," she said, beaming at Contracts with a smile that could have melted the heart of a serial killer and convinced them to change their ways.

"What you mean is irrelevant," Contracts said, finally taking a step forward.

"Stand aside or I will be forced to move you myself. I would rather a mortal not witness conflict between two Gods. Even if it would be over quickly."

"Contracts, would you just hold on a minute?" Benevolence asked, her smile flickering as she sighed. Her hair started to droop down for a moment, before her smile returned full force, and she placed a hand on Vin's shoulder. Her touch was like an electric shock that traveled through Vin's entire system, and it took everything he had to keep his legs from locking up and his body to collapse to the ground.

"I knew you would rush straight into renewing this foolish contract again, which is why I decided to interrupt your visit. Even you and your stubborn head have to understand what just happened. There is no point in binding Vin to the same contract after what he has done."

"I'm sorry, I'm still sort of stuck on why the mana erased his chains from me," Vin admitted, looking questioningly at Benevolence.

"All I wanted was for it to alter the fragment barrier. I didn't ask to be free of the contract."

"Which is precisely why this entire ordeal is foolhardy," Benevolence said, directing her words to Contracts more than him.

"Vin didn't just speak to the mana. And the mana didn't just listen. The mana took interest in you, Vin. It understood your wants and desires without you having to even think about them, and it decided to grant one of them, all of its own power. And it barely even killed you!"

"Wait, I died again?" Vin asked, frowning as Benevolence hesitated.

"I feel like you should have started with that." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"You didn't so much as die as the mana tried to turn you into something new," Benevolence admitted, Vin's tone doing nothing to dampen her spirits.

"After all, that is the nature of mana. Its lone desire is to experience that which is new. To create and become its very creations. While I'm sure you would have loved the new form the mana had in store for you, I figured the loss of your memories and having every cell in your body changed into a new one counted as a death and decided to intervene."

"So why is it your power was able to fend off the mana, while his power was wiped away in an instant?" Vin asked, still trying to wrap his head around all this. He wasn't sure how he felt about his newfound friend trying to change him to such a degree without his approval, but he couldn't really get angry with mana. He might as well be mad at time for passing. Like Benevolence said, change was its very nature.

"That brings us back to the mana's clear interest it has taken in you," Contracts spoke, still staring at him. In fact, Vin was pretty certain that the God hadn't blinked once since his arrival. Though he doubted Gods had to blink in the first place, so that probably wasn't all that strange.

"While it is in the mana's very nature to enact change, it would seem it heard your innate desire to remain you. It wasn't able to help itself from making the initial attempt, but it backed off without a fight when Benevolence decided to step in. However, from the moment we agreed to our contract, you resented having been forced into it. The mana cared little for my own desires. It placed yours over mine and erased the binding I placed upon you."

"Mana is stronger than the Gods?!" Vin asked, gasping as he looked back and forth between Contracts' hard face and Benevolence's proud grin.

"Wait wait wait, I thought you guys were the ones who wrangled the mana in the first place? Who created runes and designed the System, so that existence could even exist at all!" But even as he spoke, Vin's mind flashed back to a rather curious conversation he'd had with the librarian a few months back in her floating library, after she'd lent him a short children's story to read called Ophelia Becomes the Sky.

In it, a woman who loved the sky and all that came from it devoted herself to studying the sky, to the point where she transformed into a God of the Sky herself. After he'd read the story, the librarian had informed him about the Alphadivinity theory. A concept she personally believed in that argued for the existence of a System predating the previous one, which she had thus dubbed the origin System.

According to her, the Gods as they knew them were simply those who managed to reach the end of this original System, becoming something more than their mortal coils and eventually designing the System as they now knew it. But in order for that theory to be true… There had to be an original God that started it all.

"Mana…" Vin muttered, staring with wide eyes at the black void all around them. He didn't know where precisely he was at the moment, but even here, he could somehow sense the presence of mana.

"The only thing more powerful than a God is a stronger God… Mana created all of you!" Vin didn't know what he expected to happen after his outburst. For a new, super God to suddenly appear before him, clapping their hands as they congratulated him on figuring it out. Or perhaps a pantheon of all the Gods arriving one after another, laughing and exchanging glowing coins as bets were one and loss from a mortal putting the pieces together.

Instead, he got a grunt from Contracts, and an extra-wide smile from Benevolence.

"Mana created everything," Contracts said bluntly. He didn't look the least bit impressed by his deduction skills, but he didn't deny his words either.

"Your words are no different from pointing out how bacteria and dragons are both made from atoms. And Benevolence, if you so much as utter one more syllable on the topic, I will bind you to the point where you'll spend the next thousand years unable to move a single muscle." The Goddess's mouth had already been open, but at Contract's words, she paused, turning to glare at him.

Vin vaguely recalled how the librarian had mentioned that the Gods refused to speak on the subject when asked about the Alphadivinity theory, but their refusal to speak on his statement was all the confirmation he needed. Mana, in its infinite, ever-changing nature, had somehow created a universe. Or at least a single world, in which people grew strong enough to the point where they managed to become Gods themselves.

At which time they must have decided to use their immense power to construct the old System, for one reason or another. Vin had no way of knowing why they made the System in the first place, but he did know that their inability to play by the very rules they themselves had put into place was what had caused the corrosion of the old System, forcing the Gods to create a brand-new one and form Edregon. All this went through his mind in an instant, and he shook his head in wonder as he looked between the two Gods.

"What was it like?" he asked softly, the explorer in him eager to hear about this world that had once existed who knew how many eons ago.

"Life when anything and everything could change around you in an instant… before mana was given structure to follow. I can't even imagine." Benevolence looked like she wanted to answer him, but Contracts' glare was hard and cold. Instead, she sighed, slowly shaking her head and causing her hair to drift about even more wildly.

"Perhaps we can speak on that at a later date," she said, giving him a small smile before turning her focus back on Contracts.

"Back to the matter at hand. There is no point in forcing Vin into your contract a second time. You and I both know he will end up reaching out to the mana again, and the mana will wipe away your binding again in turn. It is inevitable. He is drawn to magic like few who have come before him."

"Then I will enact the contract a third time, and then a fourth," Contracts said simply, looking entirely unbothered by this fact.

"I will do so as many times as it takes. My decision is final, and you will leave us." With a snap of his fingers, golden chains of light erupted from the void, wrapping around Benevolence and vanishing with her just as quickly as they appeared. All of a sudden, it was just Vin and one of the most powerful Gods in existence, standing barely a dozen feet apart from one another in an endless void.

"Out of curiosity… what would happen if I just refused to agree with your contract?" Vin asked. The last time he'd faced off against Contracts, he'd been scared stiff, but this time was different. While it was obvious Contracts was far, far more powerful than he was, the confirmation that the God had once been mortal himself was strangely calming.

"Benevolence would have to find a new holder for her divine boon," Contracts said bluntly, staring him down as if asking him if he really wanted to go that route. Vin didn't miss how Contracts was only insinuating he would kill him based on his choice here rather than coming out and stating such, but that didn't matter. At this point, keeping his divine boon was far more important to him than the desire to reveal to the other Earthers that they were somehow critical to Edregon's survival.

It wasn't as though they weren't going to do whatever it took to survive already, so the answer was a simple one.

"Alright," Vin said, giving the powerful God his best smile as he held his arms wide open.

"Could we at least make this fast? I'm sort of in the middle of something, and I'd really like to get back to it."