The Outergod's Avatar-Chapter 82: "I guess you win"

When Flavius arrived at the place he most definitely knew Izikel would be, he found the front door open, and Izikel waiting inside.

"Lord Izikel," his voice was cold, stripped of any warmth or familiarity, "where is the girl?"

"What are you going to do to her?" Izikel asked, defensive and tense.

"The other Druids will keep mutating if the Altar isn’t destroyed," Flavius replied, his tone steady but burdened. "I know it’s difficult—but there is no other way."

"But there is," Izikel countered, his voice rising. "She can be anointed by a Lunar Altar as a saint. That would sever her connection to the Old Tree." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Flavius exhaled, already tired of this debate. "You read that in a book? Did the book also tell you that the reason Divine believers don’t switch faith is because it always ends with a curse from one of the gods involved?"

"But the Verdant Mother wouldn’t curse her. No matter what," Izikel insisted. "And there’s a chance the Lunar Goddess won’t either."

Flavius looked at him, frustration flickering behind his eyes. "And how many people will die before we find out? Even now, Sophia and the other saints are fighting those abominations. What happens when the whole population of Divine Druids mutates? We won’t have enough saints to even bury the dead, let alone protect the living"

He took a step forward, lowering his voice. "And once the Inquisitors hear about this, they won’t ask questions. As an Anchor of a corrupted Altar, it means her soul has come in direct contact with chaos."

"I understand you care about the girl," he said after a pause, "but there is no other way. Just tell me where she is."

Izikel fell silent for almost a full minute. His eyes drifted to the floor, to the wall, then back to Flavius. It was as if he was turning over a thousand possible outcomes in his mind—none of them ending well.

"...Okay," he finally said, the word almost choking in his throat.

He turned and led Flavius up the staircase. Past old portraits, down a hallway dusted in silence, and into his father’s old study.

Flavius didn’t question it. Not yet.

Izikel walked straight to the back of the room, then removed a simple ring from his finger. He placed it in the dent, then a portion of the bookshelf creaked aside, revealing a hidden stone passage spiraling downward.

A secret chamber.

Flavius blinked in surprise, but said nothing. He simply followed.

The air grew colder as they descended, heavier, as if the walls themselves exhaled shadows. The torches lining the walls flickered unnaturally, reacting to something unseen.

And then, as they reached the end, Flavius stopped—his body frozen by a sudden wave of chaos energy that washed over him like a curse.

There, at the edge of the chamber, stood a jagged black rock, burning from with chaotic fire.

He stared at it, his heartbeat quickening.

"Wh...what is this, Izikel?" he asked, his voice cracking under the weight of dread.

"It’s an Altar," Izikel replied, his tone calm and disturbingly firm. "My Altar."

"...W-what do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said," Izikel answered. "It’s an Altar to a Chaos god... the one I worship."

Flavius staggered back a step, his face paling. "No... no, that can’t be... You... you’re corrupted?" His mind reeled, trying to deny what was plain before him.

Instinctively, he reached for the hilt of his blade, but his hand met nothing.

It was gone.

His blade, the one that always hung from his waist, was simply not there.

Confusion gripped him as he looked up again. And then—everything shifted.

He was no longer in the Altar cave.

Darkness. Thick, suffocating, and absolute. The kind of void that didn’t just blot out sight, but senses and perception.

Then he noticed someone standing not so far from him,

"Izikel?"

But that was only the Dream Walker or Izikel’s consciousness, his real body stood behind the Legion commander with his gun raised.

A deafening bang echoed.

Pain exploded in his skull, and he collapsed, groaning.

His vision returned in flashes—just enough for him to see Izikel standing over him, arm raised, pointing a sleek object directly at his forehead.

Before Flavius could speak, or even fully register what was happening, another shot rang out.

And everything went still.

Blood pooled on the stone floor.

Izikel lowered the weapon, his eyes cold and distant.

"I’m sorry," he whispered to the corpse, though his voice lacked sorrow. "But I couldn’t think of any other way."

He stood there for a while, unmoving.

This had been the only path he could see. A coward’s path, maybe, but it was the only one that could protect Lyzah. He had led Flavius down into the one place where his soul energy wouldn’t reduce too quickly. Then, with a subtle illusion using his Dream walking abilities, he’d hidden the sword in plain sight, by altering Flavius’s perception just long enough to blind him.

And then... he killed one of the most powerful saint in the Lunar kingdom.

His first.

Yet, strangely, he didn’t feel shattered by it. He didn’t feel like some part of him had cracked or bled out.

Maybe it was the countless dead he had already seen. Maybe it was the fact that he did it for someone he didn’t want to lose.

But none of that changed the truth: he had killed a man in cold blood.

"I guess you win in the end, Oroborn," he said bitterly, forcing a smile.

He sat beside the body, breathing in silence.

The violet flames of the Altar cast dancing shadows along the walls. He turned his eyes to them, to the burning rock that had become his Altar.

"There’s no turning back now," he muttered. "And I still have to get rid of the body."

He stood, dusting off his shorts, then dragged the corpse toward the Altar with heavy arms.

It was harder than he expected, Flavius had always been a tall man, but eventually, he managed to lift the body onto the blackened rock.

Almost immediately, the body began to melt. Like butter left under the sun. Shimmering lights drifted upward like glowing motes of ash.

The flames of the Altar surged—once, twice—then grew threefold.

They didn’t stop.

They kept climbing, roaring higher, licking the ceiling like a storm of fire.

"Is this... because of how powerful he was?" Izikel asked aloud, stunned by the reaction.

He had expected the flames to grow. That was natural if a soul was sacrificed on a chaos Altar. But this... this was beyond anything the diary had described.

Then, suddenly, the flames froze in place.

The chamber fell quiet. Not just quiet—dead. Not a flicker, not a crackle.

Just silence.

And from that silence, a figure emerged. From the darkness behind the Altar, he stepped forward.

A man clad in a flawless black suit, his hair slicked back like some silver-screen noble. Everything about him screamed perfection, yet nothing about him felt human.

Oroborn.

He wore a satisfied grin, his eyes alight with delight.

"I didn’t expect to meet you again so soon, Izikel"