Chương 261: Chapter 260 - Intentions Behind a Will

"You branch off into far too many sectors," Mercyros continued.

"Your pharmaceutical division requires special attention. You offer aether to the masses. It is a befouled, artificial, heretical replacement for one of the most beautiful gifts Mother Alisia has bestowed upon these realms." Pilt felt his face go completely slack for a second. The accusation hit entirely too close to his most guarded secrets.

"The chemical properties go one of two ways," Mercyros explained.

"The piper must be paid. The user becomes completely dependent on it. It sparks the dopamine that true Fate Essence does not provide, giving them the grand illusion of absolute power. Or, alternatively, their fate thread violently contracts. They suffer the withering from absorbing too much artificial essence."

"It is just a performance booster!" Pilt yelled. His flamboyant anger rushed back to the surface.

"A little chemical pick-me-up for the tired laborers. Do not act like you actually care about their peasant health. I am sure you have stepped on plenty of ants in your time to balance a ledger." Mercyros tilted his massive head and observed Pilt with absolute contempt.

"Actions speak louder than words. You talk of the eight dead bodies floating in that river. They were avid users of your so-called performance booster. Elke, the owner of that local orphanage, purchased your product in bulk. She used it as a cheap replacement for actual meals." Pilt stood entirely motionless at the center of the vast floor. The cavern smelled of wet brass and stale ozone. The scent indicated heavy stagnation rather than simple decay. He found himself trapped at a severe crossroads.

His usual tactics involved buying out his opposition or burying them under lethal legal paperwork. Neither strategy worked against a divine entity.

"This Mira you say," Mercyros continued. The giant raised his hand in a slow, dismissive gesture.

"I do not want your company. I actually do not want anything at all from you." Pilt looked up at the looming figure. He did not know what to say. He lacked any appropriate response in that moment besides remaining completely quiet. He folded his arms, trying to project a relaxed confidence he did not actually feel.

"My desires are beyond mortal understanding," Mercyros stated smoothly.

"A drop in the ocean. I pity you." The word pity struck a raw nerve deep inside Pilt. A hot spike of anger flared in his chest. He frantically searched his mind for a weapon. He needed a barbed comment to rub in the face of this arrogant bureaucrat. He needed to make a threat to reclaim his dignity. He wanted to promise the giant that he would slowly poison the realm just to watch the deity choke on the toxic devotion. He found nothing to say. A man who desired absolutely nothing possessed no weak points.

Pilt had built his entire fortune exploiting the greed and desperation of others. Because such an individual with no desire of anything and immense power defeated his deck in every way, shape, and form, Pilt felt entirely cornered. Then a memory of another individual resurfaced. Pilt recalled a recent, highly disruptive event. His golden eyes lit up with renewed hope. He debated the risk of playing this particular card. He wondered if he would actually go that far. He decided he had absolutely nothing left to lose.

"I have a collaborator of mine, when I was acting under another identity," Pilt offered smoothly. He adjusted his damp collar and injected a dangerous, quirky lilt into his tone.

"I can exchange him. Consider it a generous bounty. I will deliver him to you tied with a silk ribbon. You can spend the next century rearranging his internal organs. He is the one who dared breaking your so-called perfect auction. The one who persisted exactly like a fat blood-fly despite your best efforts to rid yourself of his presence." Mercyros listened without changing his blank expression.

"Let sleeping dogs lie. I do not want him. His existence is of little concern to me." Pilt resumed speaking in a highly enthusiastic manner. He adopted the cadence of a desperate salesman pitching an aggressive buyout to an unwilling customer.

"I know, I know," Pilt said, waving his hands in an exaggerated arc.

"You are a god. Such mundane things do not interest you. You are far above the petty squabbles of the market. But let us be entirely honest with each other. He took something very important from you." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Mercyros stared down at the mortal. The eyes of the deity began to glow with a threatening, oppressive light.

"He took the lyre of transaction," Pilt purred, letting the syllables roll slowly off his tongue while flashing a shark-like grin.

"I bet that stings the divine corporate pride, does it not? I could make the entire supply chain above us very complicated. We would not want a sudden famine of faith, would we?" Suddenly, the strange space they found themselves in rippled violently. A localized gravitational wave slammed down from above. Pilt was instantly brought down to one knee. He struggled fiercely just to keep his spine from snapping under the immense weight pressing against his shoulders.

The cold puddle soaked into the fabric of his trousers. Despite the agonizing physical pressure, Pilt smiled. He had successfully angered the monolith. He knew from decades of cutthroat business that when emotions played a role, even the most disciplined clients made incredibly stupid deals. Anger always clouded judgment.

"Fair and square," Mercyros declared, his voice booming through the open cavern.

"He bought the item through permissible deeds. Though fate essence cannot be used in my domain, his overriding of that fundamental rule makes it so he can bypass the restriction. Therefore, he bought it on fair terms." The invisible weight pushed Pilt closer to the hard stone floor under the puddle. He felt his joints popping.

"Moreover," Mercyros added, his tone dripping with cold authority.

"Such queries are none of your pitiful mortal concern." Pilt gritted his teeth. He had burrowed deep under the skin of a god. He did not know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, but he knew he still held a playing hand. He had something he could use to his disposition. The simple fact that he was still alive meant the god was willing to converse. Pilt stared at his own reflection in the shallow golden puddle. His bright golden eyes stared back at him.

A crucial question echoed in his mind as the water rippled beneath his heavy breaths.

'Why does he not just kill me?' Pilt wondered.

'Why does he not simply violate a trade agreement?' Mercyros possessed absolute power. In the corporate realms Pilt controlled, raw power allowed massive companies to stomp on small business owners without a second thought. The strong always dominated the weak. That was the foundational rule of existence. Yet this divine entity adhered to strict, self-imposed rules even when openly provoked. It did not make logical sense to Pilt. If the god wanted Pilt gone, Pilt would be dead.

If the god wanted to punish the thief, the god would simply break the rules and take the lyre back. Pilt forced his head upward against the crushing weight of the divine pressure. The golden fluid on the floor pressed against his skin, smelling of old pennies and stagnant river water. He stared directly into the glowing eyes of the governor of transaction. He knew he was entirely outmatched, but his natural instinct for a bad business deal refused to let him remain silent.

He prepared to leverage the structural contradictions of this realm to salvage his position.

"Splendid, let us audit the accounts then," Pilt said, his voice straining under the gravity as he flashed a bloody, theatrical grin.

"Do you genuinely believe that faith maintains a stable exchange rate with actual currency? Your consumers down there do not care about your grand ledger. They are completely miserable. Absolutely nothing in that town adheres to your perfect economic logic. The strong simply devour the weak through predatory contracts, and your chosen magistrate executes people for her personal amusement. If I ran my corporation with this much structural incompetence, my board of directors would have skinned me alive weeks ago."

Mercyros descended closer to the floor. The invisible weight expanded instantly, slamming Pilt flat against the masonry. The sudden impact forced a dark spray of blood from Pilt's lips. The fluid mixed with the shallow pool of liquid gold beneath his cheek. He felt his lungs lock up completely, realizing that his biological functions were rapidly shutting down under the immense strain.

'Well, this is an incredibly unglamorous way to conclude a fiscal year,' Pilt thought, his consciousness flickering at the edges.

'At least the coat was already ruined.' Mercyros stood over him, his voice alternating between fragmented declarations and rigid, formal idioms.

"A bad debt cannot inherit the kingdom. They reside under the direct spiritual influence of Alisia, do they not? Clear accounts make long friends. They are customers, mortal. They are not my citizens." Before the deity could deliver a final, crushing blow, the golden water at the edge of the chamber began to ripple violently. A figure stepped through the shimmering mist. The newcomer was a hooded woman whose flesh appeared completely mangled beyond human recognition.

Half of her face was a ruined wreckage of torn muscle and exposed bone, yet she did not fall. As she advanced, her broken tissue began to ripple and reform. The skin peeled backward and knit itself together with mechanical precision, restoring the beautiful, pristine countenance she had displayed before her execution. The woman walked forward through the watery gold. She was dragging a limp body behind her by the wrist. Pilt forced his eyes open, tracking the motion through the crimson haze obscuring his vision.

His playful arrogance vanished instantly. He recognized the pale hand and the distinct attire of the person being dragged through the fluid. It was Mira. Directly beside the reforming woman walked another figure. Mercyros turned his massive frame toward the newcomers. He ceased his assault on Pilt, his glowing eyes narrowing as he evaluated the sudden intrusion. He raised a long hand, his voice dropping into a low, analytical tone.

"Tell me, are you the entities who initiated the structural collapse of my domain?" Mercyros inquired, his gaze lingering on the grotesque, shifting flesh of the hooded woman.

"What an entirely ugly creation."