"Ah… it's hopeless…"
Glottis sighed as he laid his head back and closed his eyes. A millennium passed since he had finished digesting the gods and heard Epiphany's last message. He had prepared a trap for Noctis every year since, yet just like the goddess told him, he always forgot one important detail.
Once he forgot to feed a trap with hellfire, so when Noctis escaped, nothing blocked his path. Another time he didn't consider that Noctis could run through his shadows, leaving an open escape route. A third time he didn't take into account that Noctis might hide among many demigods. By the time Glottis finally finished devouring all the demigods, Noctis was long gone.
"What should I do? I cannot break this curse without devouring Noctis, but I cannot capture this little eel without breaking the curse…" Glottis released the air in his lungs in a long exhale.
"I sure sigh a lot lately…" The god sighed once more. He was the most powerful being in the multiverse, yet he could not do anything right anymore. It was embarrassing, to say the least.
---
"Should I give up on capturing the little eel…?" Glottis was not even angry anymore. Ten thousand more years passed, and he still failed to capture the last remaining god. All his plans had a hole he could not see before the plan failed. The curse was eluding the facts from his mind, making it impossible for him to do anything.
"Maybe it's time to start from the beginning. I've been chasing my tail, stuck in a loophole for eleven thousand years. If I'm stuck with my current thinking frame, I might never be able to break this curse and attain perfection."
Glottis stopped musing on his next attempt at capturing the little eel, as he called Noctis now. He could see it was nothing but a wild goose chase, a dead-end he'd never cross.
"Indeed, I must learn from the beginning, maybe something I had missed. I need to gain a new perspective on life, maybe it'd allow me to come up with an idea to get rid of the curse with a combination of my other powers."
The God of Devour has already tried everything he could think of. He used light magic, Qi light techniques, enchanting, purifying, holy magic, and every other power he had assimilated. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.
"Let's watch then."
Glottis reclined in his chair comfortably, and his silvery eyes glowed in the endless darkness embracing him. His mind encompassed the multiverse, letting him read the minds of all beings and spectate all events taking place. He stayed this way for a few other millenniums but to no avail. The enlightenment he was seeking never came.
"What should I do then? Is it because watching others is not enough? Should I go and experience it for myself?"
Once he came to that conclusion, he thought about starting fresh.
"How should I even choose where to reincarnate myself?" he pondered out loud.
He had devoured the reincarnation immortal supreme, the goddess of life, and the fairy of birth. There was nothing standing in his way to do as he pleased.
It was then that he remembered his origins. He was nothing but a normal young man on a planet called Earth when a truck hit him as he saved a young girl from being hit. He was sent to another world as a prize from the bored goddess of life who happened to come across his deed and climbed all the way from there to where he was today.
"That's right, there were novels!" He remembered his old hobby from a million years ago. "Let's find a planet like Earth from back then and see which novels are trending."
"Hmm… a young boy starting from nothing in the cultivation world… not interested for now, I don't want to live in destitution and struggle for money. Reincarnating as a monster with a system? Nah… Oh this genre seems nice! Going back as a villain with a system! I would have a good background, solid financial support, and no pointless headaches."
With this goal in mind, he searched for a world fitting his needs.
"This is perfect, I could start anew there," Glottis said to the empty air when he finally found what he was looking for.
He was over a million years old. His mind was enigmatic, his nature chaotic, and his stance was decisive. A mere human would never be able to understand his thought process when he made his decision to tear a small wisp from his soul and send it to a young 18-year-old boy in that world.
He did not rush his plan; he observed the planet the boy came from, its past, and its future. He scrutinized the world it was part of, the realm beyond it, and more. Glottis' eyes missed nothing. He touched and changed a few fates, making sure to put himself in a favorable situation when he started over. Every detail was meticulously arranged until he was sure it was perfectly set.
"Now I'm certain it will be a smooth sail. Let's do something while I tear that piece of soul," The god thought to himself. He activated the seer powers he had robbed of the goddess of divination and let out a short song.
"Upon a day when pigs take flight,
The special and his band will shine a light.
First, they'll scale a mountain small,
Where ants parade and insects crawl.
In the depths of a forest where night is bright,
They'll meet a bear polite in white.
A river of honey will mark their path,
Where bees dance in a sweet, sticky bath.
Wise old bones, with a cryptic clue,
Will lead them to a field of blue.
Here, a duel with knights of cheese,
Their swords of bread bring laughter, not ease.
At the heart of a maze, where echoes lie,
They'll find the Mirror of the Sky.
With reflections of a future so bizarre,
Their journey ends, near and far."
When he finished incorporating the wisp of his soul into the boy's, he was ready to enter a long slumber from which he would only wake up when his soul leaves the boy's body. He designed it this way to let the new him free reign in his life; he didn't want to watch and be tempted to intervene every time something went south.
"Oh damn it, I forgot…" was his last thought.
---
Eight people sat in a circle in an empty white room. Each one of them was a legend in their universe, known for being supreme.
"Our plan has been crafted for a long time, and now, finally, we can execute it. I hope none of you is going to mess it up."
The speaker was a redhead man. His long, straight hair flowed like a stream of flames to his lower back, untied and unconstrained. His expression did not have the slightest hint of amusement, and his sword eyebrows remained still.
"You only have to worry about yourself, Azar. Maybe about Loriel too, I don't think she is very competent."
A woman with curly purple hair pursed her lips in annoyance when she heard the comment of her rival for the past thousand years. "Tori, you must be quite incompetent yourself if you couldn't conquer the Metallic Mountains from me in the past millennium, and we all know how often you tried it," she found an insult to return the favor.
"Hmph, I-"
"Enough, none of us is truly an enemy of the other. Don't let the battles between the heroes divide us, we are not truly on their sides," berated a woman with silky platinum hair. The other women closed their mouths and nodded, knowing she was right.
The atmosphere in the room was tense; everyone looked at each other suspiciously, unable to genuinely trust each other. As though prearranged, the eight figures got up from their seats and stepped forward, standing side to side.
"There is nothing to discuss anymore, let's get to business. I believe I should be the one sent back, I'm the most trustworthy and-"
"No, I'm a much better candidate than you."
"Enough!" The platinum-haired woman, Minerva, shouted again. She was annoyed by their petty behavior, tired of her nanny role. "How long are you going to blabber about those useless stuff? We all know none of us is going to agree to let the other be the chosen one. We had an agreement, and it stands. Pray to the heroes to be picked," she added her last remark with a mocking snort.
"Pray to them to help us stab them in the back?" A man laughed merrily, clearly impatient to see the day their wish came true.
Those eight immortals were renowned in the whole universe. In this era, they were known as the "Eight Heavenly Generals", but all of them boasted many other titles. "The Demonic Fire Warlock," was one of Azar's nicknames for example.
They were famous for being number two. The heroes, the eight entities who stood at the peak of the universe, were their bosses, and those generals served under them directly, being their right hands.
Each one of them used to be a "villain", an enemy of the heroes. What separated them from the millions of enemies slayed by the heroes, was that they were smarter and manipulative.
They had foresight; they could recognize the situation when a new hero would climb to the top. Every time, before it was too late and after it was too early, they backstabbed their leader and switched sides, gaining benefits and status from the new heroes. However, they never managed to become heroes themselves, never able to climb that one last step.
Dozens of heroes have risen and fallen in their long lives. Every time they identified the trend, they'd jump ship and serve the rising hero. They had seen many heroes and villains die throughout history, and they were the oldest eight entities in their universe.
"Pojak, are you ready to begin the procedure?" Azar asked a man whose eyes were closed, his long white eyelashes seemed unnaturally beautiful.
Pojak opened his eyes and everyone averted their gaze instinctively. His irises did not have a color; his eyes reflected millions of scenes. In the scenes, the eight generals were seen as children, as teenagers. Their long journeys were told in the mirages. Pojak was the lord of time, the plan depended on him.
Among the eight generals, there was one man who did not seem as excited and happy to see their plan of a thousand years about to bear fruit. His stoic expression only served to hide his anxiety and restlessness. He developed an ability to wear a poker face a long time ago, but it was one of his very few abilities.
'Ah… why am I here? How did I even become one of those monsters?'
The man, also known as Glottis due to the intervention of a certain god, felt millions of ants creeping on his skin and cold sweat threatening to drip from his forehead. He was a nobody. He was a powerless second-generation boy, a silk pants.
Because of his cowardly nature, he decided to betray his friend of that time and serve the boy who had a fight with them. That boy appreciated his help and gifted him with treasures and pills that helped him advance in the stages despite his nonexistent potential.
Next, Glottis backstabbed that boy for another uprising star. This process repeated itself multiple times, and the man known as the "Demon of the Mind" kept receiving benefits from one hero after the other. With those free gifts he managed to advance every time, but he had no idea what he was doing.
"Glottis, it's your turn! Make sure our memories are added to the tool and the regressor, or else history will repeat itself!" Minerva hurried to remind the man, waking him up from his reveries.
"Oh, right!" Glottis exclaimed while secretly wishing to be in any other place in the world. His control over his powers was weak. People had misunderstood his prowess all this time somehow until he was included in the eight generals, but he never fought any of them.
A translucent ball was constructed by the lord of time, in which the past of the world passed at an unimaginable speed. The different generals all contributed their part to the collective effort, channeling their special powers into it.
The lord of space made sure that nothing fell apart, the lord of life added life-span, and so on. Glottis, the lord of wisdom, finally added his energy to the mix.
"Good luck, friends. We shared a long and fickle journey together. I hope the one who goes back will not betray the rest of us."
The eight generals vanished, they poured their very soul, body, and power into this final project. One of them was sucked at random into the center of the sphere, their soul still intact. It was none other than Glottis.
---
Somewhere, outside the universe, a figure just finished sending a wisp of his soul into that sphere.
"Oh damn it, I forgot that he was incompetent, he failed to add everyone's memories to the mix. He is going to be a brainless rich kid all over again without his life experience!"
Glottis, the devouring god, chose to keep his reincarnation without abilities on purpose to allow him to explore everything without bias, but it backfired now. Because of the curse, he didn't consider this little obstacle. With a resigning sigh, he entered his slumber when a young boy had woken up from his.