'They must be wondering why I sent Mr. Devil away…'
Snape and Fleur didn't show any outward reaction like Hermione and Dominic who were visibly bewildered so he spoke quickly.
"I just wanted to inform you not to trust Mr. Devil so easily. Consider this piece of advice a show of my benevolence."
'Not to trust him?'
Hermione suddenly felt weird.
'But he helped me so much just now…why should we be wary of him? Although he looked like he was in a rush, he seemed nice? But he was naked…? No I was probably seeing things.'
"That's because he's connected to 'Her' and 'Her' blessed, or the person you rather know as Voldemort.", Loki said casually.
Everyone, regardless of who they were, had their blood freeze at the namedrop. Even though all of them were confused as to who Loki was talking about when he mentioned 'Her' they didn't ask about anything else.
"Thank you for informing us Mr. Error." Dominic said with a deep bow.
But Hermione was thinking something else.
'Why did Mr. Error invite Mr. Devil here then?'
'Does he expect us to do something about it?'
'But what can we do?'
"That's it. You can return now." Loki said disconnecting almost everyone from the Sefirah Castle.
Hermione who had prepared to vanish after Loki waved his hand for a second time found herself feeling a little cold when she was the only one left here again.
Suddenly all alone, Hermione became even more tense.
"I know you're worried about being alone here, but I have something I thought I should inform you about."
Hermione *gulped* audibly in tension but stayed still.
"Choosing a pathway can be a difficult task. There are usually several factions among you humans that correspond to each pathway. There's usually a lot of infighting and if there's no infighting then someone externally doesn't like you."
"As such choosing a pathway is like choosing your enemies and friends all at once. It is a heavy burden."
Loki paused and allowed his words to sink in before he spoke again.
"If you want to, I can give you the Sequence 9 of a pathway that was thought lost to history. So as long as you keep your cards a little hidden no one will suspect you of anything. And by the time they do, you'll already be a demigod capable of fighting them off."
Hermione suddenly felt like there was an enormous weight on her shoulders.
Firstly the sudden information was too much for her to take in at once and her mind began to spin around a single question.
"If I might ask Mr. Error…why are you doing this for me?"
Loki looked at Hermione deeply for a few seconds before giving her an answer, "Someone close to you asked me to help you out. Of course, I don't do things for free. I've already taken their sacrifice so I'm just doing my part. The rest is up to you."
Before Hemione could answer, Loki cut her off and said, "You may take time until the next gathering to answer me."
Cutting her projection from Sefirah Castle Loki finally breathed a *sigh* of relief.
"Psshhhh. That was tense! How introverted are these people!?"
Loki flicked the Door Blasphemy card in his hands and stared at it blankly while relaxing in his chair.
'Should I give the potions from this pathway to Hermione?'
'It would make for a good investment.'
'Especially if I were to steal her Apotheosis ritual for myself like Amon…'
'Hmm…I've already told her about it. Now all that remains is to see what she chooses.'
Tossing the card into his pocket Loki looked at the large empty table that was in front of him.
"Should I create a dummy like Klein did to make everyone talk more and publish missions for everyone else?"
"Probably should…that would be smart, I should've done that in the first meeting itself, that would've given them less of a shock but this is also nice. This way they will learn a little more about me and how powerful I am."
Outside the Sefirah Castle in a cozy homely room, Hermione woke up with a jerk.
'Was that a dream?'
Hermione looked around the room and spotted Ginny still sleeping but then her eyes fell on the snow globe that she was holding and found that it had cracked a little.
She immediately pulled out her wand to fix it, but no matter what spell she used, it remained broken.
'So it was real?'
Hermione's ears still rang with the words that Loki had just said, 'Someone close to you asked me to help you out.'
'Was it Professor McGonagall?'
'No, she would've written a letter to warn me about such a thing before.'
'Then who?'
'Daphne?'
'No, she's not like that…I'm sure she'd have told me about it if she was doing such a scary thing.'
'Loki then?'
'But he was adamantly against me becoming a Beyonder…did he ask Mr. Error to help me? But why? And wouldn't he have warned me beforehand if he'd done such a thing?'
Hermione frowned deep in thought eventually she collapsed back into her pillow with one last thought.
But suddenly her skin crawled with disgust.
'Eww…doesn't what Mr. Error said mean that I have a Beyonder stalker? Whoever did this to me! I will make sure to catch you and beat you until…until you no longer want to stalk me anymore!'
Miles away in the office, Dominic suddenly woke up on his desk as if he'd just suffered a nightmare.
"You 'right fam?"
Dominic's deskmate asked out of surprise in an attempt to comfort but to Dominic it only meant one thing, 'Mr. Error is really strong. He was able to pull me into that gathering without alerting anyone in the office.'
'How!?'
Suddenly he remembered Loki's words at the end, 'That's because he's connected to 'Her' and 'Her' blessed, or the person you rather know as Voldemort.'
'I knew something was wrong with that bastard!'
'But who was this 'Her' that Mr. Error was referring to? An Evil God? The Primordial Demoness?'
'Do I report him?'
'But how do I tell them I got this information?'
'I better keep everything hidden for now. And I'll inform them about the matter once I'm sure he is trying to do something serious so that he can be caught in the act.'
'Yes, that's the best option I have if I don't want to be seen as the believer of a crazy God.'
In another part of Britain, a naked man suddenly opened his eyes and looked around himself. Not spotting anyone around himself except the man who was in the trunk, he relaxed.
He then turned his attention towards his soiled pants on the floor that had gotten wet with the Polyjuice potion that had leaked from his cracked flask.
With the wave of his wand, the potion was collected from his pants and filled a different container.
He immediately cleared the desk in the study room and settled down with an inkpot and some parchment, on which he wrote a short letter.
He quickly set up an altar and immediately called for a messenger.
The room turned dark and the flame of the candle turned reddish pink before a rotting face appeared on the wall, the man tossed his letter into the creature's mouth and ended the ritual, causing the creature to become free.
In another part of Britain, the creature showed up in front of a woman with curly black hair who looked insane.
She had a fanatic adoration in her eyes for someone who was sitting on the sofa in front of her. So much so that she didn't even look when the room turned dark and the same spirit from before appeared beside her.
"What is written in the letter Bellatrix?" the half-dead voice of the person on the couch asked, causing Bellatrix to finally divert her attention and look at the creature that was delivering the letter.
She put her hand into its mouth and pulled out the letter, before opening it and reading it.
"Crouchy says he was pulled into a gathering in the presence of a True God who referred to himself as Mr. Error. However, nothing of note happened there. Should he do something?"
"Mr. Error?" The croaky voice that sounded half dead asked.
"Yes. Would you like me to find out who he is and join the gathering my Lord!?"
There was silence for a while before the voice spoke again.
"No. Tell Barty to keep me informed about this…gathering. But also tell him to focus on his mission. I don't want any mistakes to happen. He is to bring both the first boy and Harry Potter to me. Failure is not acceptable."
"You should've just let me go to Hogwarts instead of him! I would've brought them both their heads to you on a golden platter!! How nice it would've been to carve their souls with pain!! Ah!! I feel excited just imagining it!!"
No one responded since Belatrix's eyes were still adoring the picture she'd painted in her imagination.
Snape opened his eyes and saw another pair of crystal-like blue eyes peering into his own.
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